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y&crojLta CgJkjjAu'-,,<x. W 3 <2 -* f ^ ^ * 

n 4 ’ 

PROCEEDINGS 

OF THE 

CONVENTION or SOUTH CAROLINA 

UPON THE 

SUBJECT OF 

NULLIFICATION; 

INCLUDING THE 

Hemaifks of Governor Hamilton, 

ON TAKING THE PRESIDENT’S CHAIR; 

THE ORDINANCE 

NULLIFYING- THE TAKIFF LAWS. 

AND THE REPORT WHICH ACCOMPANIED IT; 

AN ADDRESS 

To tlie People of tlie United States*, 

AN ADDRESS 

TO THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH CAROLINA* 

8c C. &G. 


BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY BEALS, HOMER & CO* 

(Office of the Daily Commercial Gazette.) 

No. 34, Congress Street. 


1832 






ITk+azs 


MMGARETW.CUSH.KC 

JAN. 26, 1938 





t/a/V S' 



In pursuance of an act passed at the late extra 
session of the Legislature, the Convention of South 
Carolina assembled at Columbia on Monday, the 19th 
of November, when Gov. James Hamilton, Jr. was 
duly elected to preside over its deliberations, and 
Isaac W. Hayne, Esq. was appointed Clerk. Gov¬ 
ernor Hamilton, on taking the chair, addressed the 
Convention in the following terms:— 

“ On looking - around this assembly and seeing of whom and by whom it is 
composed, no impulse of self-love could lead me to attribute the flattering and 
distinguished honor I have just received, to any thing else than the high and 
responsible station I at present fill. When I see so many individuals, whose 
experience is more mature, and whose claims are paramount to my own, I can 
attribute the selection to no other cause. 

“ I am, nevertheless, deeply penetrated, gentlemen, by a sense of your 
kindness, as well as my own responsibility. A crisis of no common character— 
no ordinary occasion has brought us together. The most solemn duties which 
can be obligatory on citizens of a free and sovereign State have compelled us to 
assemble, and the highest and most enduring results will succeed the manly 
and inflexible discharge of those duties. 

“ It is scarcely a solecism under our form of Government, to say that here 
are the PEOPLE. This is the concentration of their sovereignty. The people 
have, through the instrumentality of an intermediate class of their agents, de_ 
termined that a Convention should be called. The act was passed in a spirit 
of wisdom and of discretion, and we are convened, under a solemn injunction 
from the people, to take into consideration the several acts of the Congress of 
the United States, imposing duties for the protection of American Manufac¬ 
tures, considered by the people of South Carolina as infringements of their 
rights, and violations of the Constitution, and to devise the mode and measure 
of redress. These are our duties, and while we endeavour to discharge them 
in a spirit of enlightened moderation, and an inflexible determination to pre¬ 
serve the greatest courtesy and urbanity, let us recollect that there is also a 
high moral courage, requisite in their faithful performance. If then there is 
and belongs to political bodies an enlarged forecast, and a courage inspired by 
the dignity of the occasion, let us, in the language of the immortal martyr to 
constitutional liberty, “put on athletic habits for the contest,” and nerve our 
souls to the struggle. 

“ Gentlemen, I shall be often compelled to throw myself on your indul¬ 
gence. This is the first occasion that I have been called upon to preside over 
a deliberative body. All I can do is to pledge my best endeavours to main¬ 
tain decorum, and to secure all the latitude of debate consistent with our well 
known parliamentary rules. 


4 


“ Permit me to say, that ours is no ordinary position. We have all the incon- 
testible power attributed to Sovereign States. Ours is the first Convention for 
reviewing the terms and conditions of the Federal compact—not for the pur¬ 
pose of reviewing our State Constitution, but to decide upon high and ulterior 
questions of Sovereignty, of indispensable importance, and of lasting const*, 
quences, either for benefit or injury to the citizens of our State. These circum¬ 
stances, under which we are at present convened, are a commentary upon the 
safety and beauty of our Constitution and form of government. In other 
countries, if we should be thus assembled, we should be obnoxious to the charge 
of an attempt to change the elements of government, and to overthrow the 
social system from its foundation. But with us the meeting of this assembly 
disturbs nothing else. Here, every thing goes on with the harmony and tran¬ 
quillity of the spheres themselves. 

“In conclusion, permit me to say, that in taking the matter under consid¬ 
eration submitted to you, my anxious prayer is that your deliberations may 
tend to establish our own liberties, to maintain the rights and privileges of our 
own people, and with this to give stability to the Union ; to restore to us our 
altars and firesides, the harmony and affection out of which the Union sprung, 
and which are its best safeguard and protection. With these remarks, I pro¬ 
ceed to discharge the duties you have entrusted to me.” 

The President was requested to invite the Clergy of 
Columbia to open the proceedings of each day with 
prayer; a committee was appointed to prepare rules 
and orders for the government of the Convention; and 
other preliminary proceedings were adopted. The 
following resolution was then submitted by Judge 
Col cock :— 

Resolved, That the act to provide for the calling; of a Conven¬ 
tion of the people of this State, be referred to a select committee, 
consisting of twenty-one members, to be nominated by the Presi¬ 
dent, with instructions to report thereon, and especially as to the 
measures proper to b * adopted by this Convention in reference to 
“ the violation of the Constitution of the United States, in the en¬ 
actment by Congress, on divers occasions, of laws laying duties 
and imposts, for the purpose of encouraging and protecting do¬ 
mestic manufactures, and for other unwai rantable purposes.” 

This resolution w r as adopted. And in order to give 
the President time to appoint the Committee, the Con¬ 
vention adjourned till Tuesday, at 10 o’clock. 

On Tuesday, the 20th, the deliberations of the day 
were opened by a prayer from the Rev. Mr. Ray, a 
member of the Convention. Rules and orders were 


5 


then reported, and adopted. The second rule was in 
the following words: — 

“ If any member shall break the Convention, or absent himself without leave, he shall 
be sent for at his own expense, and be subject to the censure of the Convention.” 

The President reported (he following - gentlemen as the special committee, 
to report upon the matters designated in (lie act for the calling of a conven¬ 
tion :—Judge C. J. Colcock, Gen. J. B. Earle, Judge Wm Harper, Judge John 
B. O’Neale, Hon. R. Y Hayne, Hon. J. K. Griffin, Benj. Rogers, James R. 
Ervin, Col. Jacob Bond [’On, Pierce M. Butler, Col. Wm. C. Pinckney, Hon. 
Stephen D. Miller, Judge J. Johnston, Hon. George M’Duffie, Henrv Middle- 
ton, Robert J. Turnbull, Hon. Robert W. Barnwell, C. Richard, J. Manning, 
T. D. Singleton, sen , Jas. A. Black, John Bausket. 

Judge Colcock moved, that in order to give the committee time to prepare 
the very laborious reporr that it would be necessary that they should make, 
the Convention adjourn to 1 o’clock, P. M. of Wednesday. It was so carried, 

The special committee immediately assembled in the Senate chamber. Mr. 
Turnbull rose to suggest, that as so large a committee was too unwieldly for 
the despatch of business, a sub-committee be oppointed, with instructions to 
report the several papers that it will be necessary to prepare, viz : An Ordi¬ 
nance declaring the Tariff Act null and void ; an Address of this Convention to 
the People of the United States, and an Exposition of the proceedings of this 
State. 

The Resolution was adopted, and the following gentlemen appointed by 
the chair :—Messrs. Turnbull, Harper, Hayne, McDuffie, I’On, Pinckney and 
Johnston. On motion, the chairman, (Judge Colcock,) was added to the com¬ 
mittee. 

The committee then adjourned until 11 o’clock of the following day, (Wed¬ 
nesday,) and the sub-committee went immediate Iv into private session. 

On Wednesday, the 22d, the Convention met pur¬ 
suant to adjournment. Mr. Earle, from the- special 
committee appointed on the previous day, stated that 
that Committee had not found it practicable to prepare 
their report, and asked further time, which was grant¬ 
ed. The Convention then adjourned to Thursday 
morning. 

On Thursday, the Committee made the following 
Report, accompanied by a 66 solemn Declaration and 
Ordinance,” all of which were adopted with great 
unanimity and ordered to he printed :— 

REPORT. 


The committee to whom was referred u the act to provide for the calling of a 
Convention of the people of this State,” with instructions to “consider and 
report thereon, and especially as to the measure proper to be adopted by 
the Convention, in reference to the violation of the Constitution of the 


6 


United States, in the enactment by Congress, on divers occasions, of laws 
laying duties and imposts for the purpose of encouraging and protecting 
domestic manufactures, and for other unwarrantable purposes,” beg leave 
respectfully to submit the following REPORT. 

The committee, -deeply impressed with the importance of the 
questions submitted to them, and the weight of responsibility in¬ 
volved in their decision, have given to the subject their most de¬ 
liberate and anxious consideration. In stating the conclusions to 
which they have arrived, they feel that it is due to themselves, to 
this Convention, and the public at large, briefly to review the his¬ 
tory of the protecting system in this country, to show its origin, to 
trace its progress, to examine its character, point out its evils, 
and suggest the appropriate remedy. They propose to execute 
this task with all possible brevity and simplicity, sensible that the 
subject is too well understood in all its bearings to require at this 
time a very elaborate investigation. 

In the natural course of human affairs, the period would have 
been very remote when the people of the United States would 
have engaged in manufactures, but for the restrictions upon our 
commerce which grew out of the war between Great Britain and 
France, and which led to the non-intercourse act, the embargo, 
and finally our own war of 1812. Cut off by these events from 
a free commercial intercourse with the rest of the world, the peo¬ 
ple of the United States turned their attention to manufactures, 
and on the restoration of peace in 1815, an amount of capital had 
been already invested in these establishments which made a strong 
appeal to the liberality—we might almost say to the justice of the 
country for protection ; at least against that sudden influx of fo¬ 
reign goods which it was feared would entirely overwhelm these 
domestic establishments. When, therefore, in 1816, it became 
necessary that the revenue should be brought down to the peace 
establishment, by a reduction of the duties upon imports, it was 
almost by common consent conceded to the claims of the manu¬ 
facturers, that this reduction should be gradual, and three years 
were accordingly allowed for bringing down the duties to the per¬ 
manent revenue standard, which, embracing all the ordinary ex¬ 
penses of the Government; with liberal appropriations for the 
navy and the army, an extensive system of fortifications, and the 
gradual extinction of the public debt (then amounting to §130,- 
000,000,) was fixed at 20 per cent. If the manufacturers had at 
that time even hinted that permanent protection was deemed in¬ 
dispensable to their success: if the slightest suspicion had been 
entertained, that instead of the gradual reduction expressly pro¬ 
vided for by the act of 1816, there would be claimed a gradual 
increase of the protecting duties, and that instead of being brought 
down in three years to 20 per cent., the duties were to be carried 
up to 50 or 100 per cent., and, in many cases, to prohibition, the 
painful contest iu which the country has been engaged for the 


7 


last ten years on this subject, would have commenced immediate¬ 
ly, and it is confidently believed that in the temper of the public 
mind at that time, ample security would have been found against 
the introduction of such a system. But in defiance of the clear 
understanding of the whole country, and in violation of the prin¬ 
ciples of justice and of good faith, that part of the act above men¬ 
tioned which required that the duties should be reduced in three 
years to 20 per cent, was repealed, and a broad foundation thus 
laid for the permanent establishment of the protecting system. 

The system has been still further extended and fortified by the 
several successive acts of 1820, 1824, and 1828, until by the pass¬ 
ing of the act of 1832 (to take effect after the discharge of the 
public debt) it has been become more incorporated into our polit¬ 
ical system, as the “settled policy of the country.” We 
have not deemed it necessary, in tracing the origin and progress 
of this system, to go further back than the commercial restrictions 
which preceded the late war—for whatever theoretical opinions 
may have been expressed by Alexander Hamilton and others in 
relation to it at an earlier period, it cannot be denied that no du¬ 
ties were actually imposed beyond those deemed indispensable for 
the public exigencies, and that prior to the year 1816 no protec¬ 
tion whatever was actually extended to manufactures, beyond 
what was strictly incidental to a system for revenue. The dis¬ 
crimination between the protected and unprotected articles now 
contended for as the very corner stone of the protecting system, 
was so far from being established by that act, that the highest du¬ 
ties were actually imposed on the very articles now admitted du¬ 
ty free, while the foreign manufactures which came into competi¬ 
tion with our domestic fabrics were subjected to the lowest rate 
of duty. The truth then unquestionably is, that the protecting 
policy, according to the principles now contended for, was never 
introduced into this country until the period we have mentioned, 
when it crept insidiously into the legislation of Congress in the 
manner above described. This will be made abundantly manifest 
to every one who will take the pains to trace the progress of the 
duties from 74 per cent in 1790, up to 25 per cent, in 1816: 40 
per cent, in 1824, and 50—60, and even 100 per cent, in 1828 
and 1832, and who will merely examine the manner in which these 
duties were adjusted in the various acts here referred to. As 
early as 1820, so soon indeed as the capitalists who had relied 
upon the powers of the Federal Government to enhance the profits 
of their investments by legislation, began to look forward to its 
eventual establishment as the settled policy of^the country—they 
clearly perceived that an extension of the appropriations to objects 
not embraced in the specific grants of the Federal Constitution 
was the necessary appendage of their system. They well knew 
that the people would not long submit to the levying of a large 
surplus revenue merely for the protection of manufactures, carried 
on almost exclusively in one quarter of the Union—and they 


8 


therefore sought, in the extension of the appropriations to new ob¬ 
jects, for a plausible and popular excuse for the continuance of a 
system of high duties. With that instinctive sagacity, which be¬ 
longs to men who convert the Legislature of a country into an 
instrument for the promotion of their own private ends, they 
clearly saw that the distribution of an enormous surplus treasure, 
would afford the surest means of bringing over the enemies of the 
American system to its support, and of enlisting in their cause 
not only large masses of the people, but entire States who had no 
direct interest in maintaining the protecting system, or who were 
even, in some respects, its victims. No scheme that the wit of 
man could possibly have devised, was better calculated for the 
accomplishment of the object. It proposed simply to reconcile 
men to an unjust system of national policy, by admitting them to 
alarge share of the spoils; in a word, to levy contributions, by the 
aid of those who were to divide the plunder. 

If the United States had constituted one great nation, with a 
consolidated Government, occupying a territory of limited extent, 
inhabited by a people engaged in similar pursuits, and having 
homogeneous interests, such a system would have operated as a 
tax upon all the other great interests of the State for the benefit 
of that which was favored by the laws, and when time had been 
allowed for the adjustment of society, to tins new condition of its 
affairs, the final result must have been, an aggregate diminution 
of the profits of the whole community, by diverting a portion of 
the people from their accustomed employments, to less profitable 
pursuits. In such a case, the hope might, perhaps, have been in¬ 
dulged that experience would demonstrate the egregious folly of 
enacting laws, the only effect of which would be to supply the 
wants of the community at an increased expense of labor and 
capital But it is the distinguishing feature of the American sys¬ 
tem, and one which stamps upon it the character of peculiar and 
aggravated oppression, that is made applicable to a confederacy 
of twenty-four sovereign and independent States, occupying a 
territory upwards of two thousand miles in extent, embracing 
every variety of soil, climate and productions, inhabited by a 
people whose institutions and interests are in many respects dia¬ 
metrically opposed to each other, with habits and pursuits infi¬ 
nitely diversified, and in the great southern section of the Union, 
rendered by local circumstances altogether incapable of change. 
Under such circumstances, a system which, under a consolidated 
Government, would be merely impolitic, and so far, an act of 
injustice to the whole community, becomes in this country a 
scheme of the most intolerable oppression, because it may be, and 
in fact has been, so adjusted as to operate exclusively to the ben¬ 
efit of particular sections of country, rendering in effect the in¬ 
dustry of one portion of the confederacy tributary to the rest. 
The laws have accordingly been so framed as to give a direct pe¬ 
cuniary interest to a sectional majority, in maintaining a grand 


9 


system by which taxes are in effect imposed upon the few, for the 
benefit of the many, and imposed, too, by a system of indirect 
taxation, so artfully contrived as to escape the vigilance of the 
common eye, and masked under such ingenious devices as to 
make it extremely difficult to detect and expose their true char¬ 
acter. Thus, under the pretext of imposing duties for the pay¬ 
ment of the debt, and providing for the common defence and 
general welfare, (powers expressly conferred on the Federal 
Government by the Constitution,) acts are passed containing pro¬ 
visions designed exclusively and avowedly for the purpose of se¬ 
curing to the American manufacturers a monopoly in our own 
markets, to the great and manifest prejudice of those who furnish 
the agricultural productions which are exchanged in foreign 
markets for the very articles which it is the avowed object of 
these laws to exclude. It so happens, that six of the southern 
States, whose industry is almost exclusively agricultural, though 
embracing a population equal to only one-third part of the whole 
Union, actually produce for exportation forty millions annually, 
being two-thirds of the whole domestic exports of the United 
States. As it is their interest, so it is, unquestionably, their 
right to carry these fruits of their own honest industry, to the best 
market, without any molestation, hindrance, or restraint, whatso¬ 
ever, and subject to no taxes or other charges, but. such as may 
be necessary lor the payment of the reasonable expenses of the 
Government. But how does this system operate upon our industry ? 
While imposts to the amount of ten or twelve per cent, (if ar¬ 
ranged on just and equal principles) must be admitted to be ful¬ 
ly adequate to all the legitimate purposes of Government, duties 
are actually imposed (with a few inconsiderable exceptions) upon 
all the woollens, cottons, iron, and manufactures of iron, sugar 
and salt ; and almost every other article received in exchange for 
the cotton, rice, and tobacco, of the south, equal on an average to 
about fifty per cent., whereby, (in addition to the injurious ef¬ 
fects of this system in prohibiting some articles, and discourag¬ 
ing the introduction of others.) a tax equal to one half of the first 
cost is imposed upon the cottons, woollens, and iron, which are 
the fruits of southern industry, in order to secure an advantage 
in the home market, to their rivals, the American manufacturers 
of similar articles, equivalent to one half of their value, thereby 
stimulating the industry of the north, and discouraging that of 
the south, by granting bounties to the one, and imposing taxes 
upon the other. 

The committee deem it unnecessary to go into an elaborate ex¬ 
amination of the true character and sectional operation of the 
protecting system. The subject has nt late been so frequently 
and thoroughly examined, and the bearing of the system been so 
completely exposed, that the argument is exhausted. To the peo¬ 
ple of the southern States, there cannot be presented a more 
touching or irresistible appeal either to their understandings or 


10 


their hearts, than is found in the melancholy memorials of ruin 
and decay, which are every where visible around us—memorials 
proclaiming the fatal character of that system which has brought 
upon one of the finest portions of the globe, in the full vigor ot 
its early manhood, the poverty and desolation which belong only 
to the most sterile regions, or to the old age and decrepitude of 
nations. The moral blight and pestilence of unwise and partial 
legislation has swept over our fields with “the besom of destruc¬ 
tion.” The proofs are every where around us. 

It is in vain for any one to contend that this is a just and equal 
system, or that the northern States pay, as consumers, a full pro¬ 
portion of the tax ; if this were so, how is it to be accounted for 
that high duties are regarded in that quarter of the Union, not as 
a burden, but as a blessing? How comes it, that a people, cer¬ 
tainly not unmindful of their interests, are seen courting the im¬ 
position of taxes, and crying out against any reduction of the 
public burdens ? Does not this extraordinary fact afford conclu¬ 
sive evidence that high duties operate as a bounty to northern 
industry; and that whatever taxes the manufacturer may pay, as 
consumers, they are more than remunerated by the advantage 
they enjoy as producers ? or, in other words, that they actually 
receive more than they pay, and, therefore, cannot be justly said 
to be taxed at all. When, in addition to all this, we take into 
consideration that the amount of duties annually levied for the 
protection of manufactures, beyond the necessary wants of the 
Government, (which cannot be estimated at less than 10 or 
12,000,000,) is expended almost exclusively in the northern por¬ 
tion of the Union, can it excite any surprise, that, under the op¬ 
eration of the protecting system, the manuPicturing States should 
be constantly increasing in riches, and growing in strength, with 
an inhospitable climate and barren soil, while the southern States, 
the natural garden of America, should be rapidly falling into de¬ 
cay. It is contrary to the general order of Providence, that any 
country should long bear up against a system, by which enormous 
contributions, raised in one quarter, are systematically expended 
in another. If the SI6,000,000 now annually levied in duties on 
the foreign goods received in exchange for southern productions, 
were allowed to remain in the pockets of the people, or by some 
just and equal system of appropriation, could be restored to them, 
the condition of the plantation States would unquestionably be 
one of unexampled prosperity and happiness Such was our con¬ 
dition under a system of free trade, and such would soon again be 
our enviable lot. Of the results which would thereby be produced, 
some faint conception may be formed by imagining what would 
be the effect upon the industry of the people of our own State, if 
the 8,000,0U0 of foreign goods now annually received in exchange 
for our productions, and paying duties to the amount of upwards 
of 3,000,000, could be obtained by us duty free; or, the duties 
thus levied, were expended within our own limits. Is it not ob- 


11 


vious that several millions per annum would be added to the 
available industry of South Carolina, the effect of which would 
assuredly be to change the entire face oi affairs in this State, by 
enhancing the profits of the agriculturist, accumulating capital, 
giving fresh impulse to commerce, and producing a vivifying in¬ 
fluence upon every department of industry, the happy consequen¬ 
ces of which would be experienced by every inhabitant of the 
State. We present this strong view of the subject to show the 
manifest justice of the claim which South Carolina now sets up, 
to have this system of raising revenue by duties upon imports re¬ 
stricted within the narrowest limits, and to show how utterly im¬ 
possible it is for us to consent to have it extended beyond the in- 
dispensible wants of the Government, either for the” purpose of 
affording protection to the industry of the other, or of distributing 
the proceeds among individuals or States. 

Grievous, however, as the oppression unquestionably is, and 
calculated in the strong language of our own legislature, “to re¬ 
duce the Plantation States to poverty and utter desolation,” it is 
not in this aspect that the question is presented in its most dan¬ 
gerous and alarming form. It is not merely that Congress have 
resorted for unwarrantable purposes to an oppressive exercise of 
powers granted to them by the Constitution, but that they have 
usurped a power not granted, and have justified that usurpation 
on principles which, if sanctioned or submitted to, must entirely 
change the character of the Government, reduce the Constitution 
to a dead letter, and on the ruins of our confederated republic 
erect a consolidated despotism, “ without limitation of powers.” 
If this be so, there is no man who is worthy of the precious heri¬ 
tage of liberty derived from our ancestors, or who values the free 
institutions of his country, who must not tremble for the cause of 
freedom, not only in this country, but throughout the world, un¬ 
less the most prompt and efficient measures are at once adopted 
to arrest the downward course of our political affairs, to stay the 
hand of oppression, to restore the Constitution to its original prin¬ 
ciples, and thereby to perpetuate the Union. 

It cannot be denied that the Government of the United States 
possesses no inherent powers. It was called into being by the 
States. The States not only created it, but conferred upon it all 
its powers, and prescribed its limits by a written charter called 
the Constitution of the United States. Before the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment had thus been called into being, the several States un¬ 
questionably possessed as full sovereignty, and were as indepen¬ 
dent of each other as the most powerful nations of the world, and 
in the free and undisputed exercise of that sovereignty, they en¬ 
tered into a solemn compact with each other, by which it was 
provided, that for certain specified objects, a General Government 
should be established with strict limited powers not expressly 
granted to the Federal Government. 

In the clear and emphatic language of Mr. Jefferson, “the sev- 


12 


eral States composing the United States of America, are not uni¬ 
ted on the principle of unlimited submission to the General Gov¬ 
ernment, but by a compact under the style and title of the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States, they constituted a General Gov¬ 
ernment for special purposes, delegated to that Government cer¬ 
tain definite powers, reserving each State to itself the residuary 
mass of right to tlieir’own self-government, and whensoever the 
General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are 
unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” That such is the true na¬ 
ture of the Federal compact, cannot admit of a reasonable doubt, 
and it follows of necessity that the Federal Government is merely 
a joint agency, created by the States—-that it can exert no power 
not expressly granted by them, and that when it claims any power, 
it must be able to refer to the clause in the charter which confers 
it. This view of the Constitution of the U. States brings the 
question of the constitutionality of the tariff within the narrowest 
limits. 

The regulation of domestic industry , so far as Government may 
rightfully interfere therewith, belonged to the several States before 
the Constitution was adopted, or the Union sprang into existence; 
and it still remains exclusively with them, unless it has been ex¬ 
pressly granted to the Federal Government. If such a grant has 
been made, it is incumbent on those claiming, under it, to point 
out the provision in the Constitution which confers it. It must be 
admitted that there is not a clause or article in that instrument, 
which has the slightest allusion either to manufactures or to agri¬ 
culture ; while, therefore, the ‘ fc regulation of commerce” is ex¬ 
pressly conferred on the General Government, the regulation of 
every branch of domestic industry is reserved to the several States, 
exclusively, who may afford them encouragement, by pecuniary 
bounties, and by all other means, not inconsistent with the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States. To say that the power to regulate 
commerce embraces the regulation of,agriculture and manufactures, 
and all the ether pursuits of industry, (for they all stand upon the 
same footing) is to confound the plainest distinctions, and to lose 
sight of the true meaning and intent of the grant in question.— 
Commere is, in general, regulated by treaties with foreign nations; 
and. therefore, it was deemed necessary that this power should be 
confided to the General Government; but agriculture, manufac¬ 
tures, and the mechanic arts, can only be wisely ordered bv mu¬ 
nicipal regu'ation Commerce is one object of legislation, manu¬ 
factures another, agriculture a third ; and if the regulation of com¬ 
merce implies an unlimited control over every thing which consti¬ 
tutes the object of commerce, it would follow', as a matter of course, 
that the Federal Government may exert a supreme dominion over 
the whole labor and capital of the country, and this would trans¬ 
form our confederated Government, with strictly limited powers, 
into an absolute despotism, and of the worst sort, where, under the 
forms of a free Government, we should have the spirit of a despot- 



13 


ic one. This view of the subject we should deem perfectly con¬ 
clusive, even if it could not be shown that the power in question, 
so far from being granted, was purposely withheld from the Fede¬ 
ral Government, by the framers of the Constitution ; and that there 
are several provisions of the Constitution, from which it may be 
fairly inferred, that it was expressly intended to be reserved to 
the States respectively. It appears from the history of the pro¬ 
ceedings of the Convention which framed the Constitution, 
that the subject of the protection of manufactures was several 
times brought distinctly to the view of that body ; and that they 
did not see fit to grant to the Federal Government the power in 
question. In the original proposition to confer on Congress the 
power to impose “ duties, imposts, and excises,” was embraced 
'•prohibitions and restraints,” which may well be supposed to be 
intended to embrace the protection of manufactures ; but it is re¬ 
markable, that these words were omitted in the report of the Com¬ 
mittee, on that clause. On the 18 th of August a motion was made 
“ to establish rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agri¬ 
culture, commerce, trades, and manufactures but this proposi¬ 
tion also failed. On a subsequent day, it was moved that there 
should be a “ Secretary of Domestic Affairs, Sec., whose duty it 
should be to attend to matters of general police, the state of agri¬ 
culture and manufactures, the opening of roads and navigation, 
ami facilitating of intercourse through the United States; and that 
he shall, from time to time, recommend such measures and estab¬ 
lishments as may tend to promote these objec ts.” This proposi¬ 
tion likewise failed, the Constitution containing no provision in 
conformity therewith. 

Now, as it is utterly impossible, that these several propositions 
embracing imposts, duties, prohibitions and restraints, and the en¬ 
couragement of manufactures, could have been disposed of, with¬ 
out bringing the whole question of domestic manufactures fully 
into view—it must follow, that as no power was given to Congress 
over manufacturers, while the power to regulate commerce is ex¬ 
pressly conferred, it was not the intention of the framers of the 
Constitution to entrust this power to Congress. Although repeat¬ 
edly urged to confer such power, they constantly telused it; and 
the Constitution, as finally ratified, contains no provision, what¬ 
ever, upon the subject in the report of Luther Martin, a dele¬ 
gate from Maryland, made to the legislature of his State, an ex¬ 
planation is given of the proceedings of the Convention, in rela¬ 
tion to this matter, which removes every shadow of doubt, with 
regard to the true meaning and intent of the framers of the Con¬ 
stitution, in relation to the protection of manufactures. It appears 
from this statement, that, as the encouragement of manufactures 
had been refused to be conferred upon the Federal Government, it 
was the desire of Mr. Martin and others, to reserve to the States 
all the means which they suppose necessary for affording effectual 
encouragement to manufactures within their limits. Among those 


14 


it was presumed “ that there might be cases in which it would be 
proper for the purpose of encouraging manufactures to lay duties 
to prohibit the exportation of raw materials, and even in addition 
to the duties laid by Congress on imports for the sake of revenue, 
to lav a duty to discourage the importation of particular articles, 
into a State, or to enable a manufacturer here to supply us on as 
good terms as could be obtained from a foreign market.” Here 
it will be seen that it is positively stated by Mr. Martin that the 
power given to Congress to impose duties upon imports was given 
expressly '‘for the sake of revenue ,” and was not considered as 
extending to any duty to discourage the importation of particular 
articles, for the purpose of encouraging manufactures, and thacit 
was considered that unless the several States should possess this 
power as well as that of prohibiting the exportation of certain raw 
materials, they would not be enabled to extend that complete pro¬ 
tection to their own manufacturers which might be deemed indis- 
pensible to their success “ The most, however,” says Mr. Mar¬ 
tin, “ which we could obtain was, that this power might be exer¬ 
cised by the States, bv and with the consent of Congress and sub¬ 
ject to its control.” Thus, then, it manifestly appears, that in re¬ 
lation to manufactures, the framers of the Constitution positively 
refused to confer upon the Federal Government any power what¬ 
ever;—that the power to lay duties, See., was conferred for the 
sake of revenue alone, and was not intended to embrace the pow¬ 
er to lay duties “ to discourage the importation of particular arti¬ 
cles to enable the manufacturers here to supply us on as good 
terms as could be obtained from a foreign marketand finally, 
that the whole subject was left in the hands of the several States, 
with the restriction, that no State shall, without the consent of 
Congress, lay any impostor duties on imports or exports, except 
what may be absolutely necessary for executing their inspection 
laws,” which power, it appears, was expressly inserted for the 
purpose of enabling the States to protect their own manufactures, 
and that this was the only provision which the friends of domestic 
industry could obtain. It is vain to allege that the powers retain¬ 
ed by the States on the subject, are inadequate to the effectual ac¬ 
complishment of the object. If this were so it would only show 
the necessity of some further provision on this subject—but surely 
it will not be pretended that it would justify the usurpation by 
Congress of a power, not only not granted bv the Constitution 
but purposely withheld. We think, however, that this exposition 
of the Constitution places the protection of manufactures on tlie 
true foundation on which it should stand in such a Government as 
ours. Nothing can be more monstrous than that the industry 
of one or more States in this confederacy should be made profita¬ 
ble at the expense of others, and this must be the inevitable result 
of any scheme of legislation by the General Government, calcula¬ 
ted to promote manufactures by restrictions upon commerce or 
agriculture. 


15 


Whereas, by leaving manufactures where agriculture and other 
domestic pursuits have been wisely left by the Constitution—with 
the several States—ample security is furnished that no preference 
will be given to one pursuit over another; and if it should be 
deemed advisable in any particular State to extend encouragement 
to manufactures, either by direct appropriation of money, or in the 
way pointed out in the article of the Constitution above quoted, 
that this will be done not at the expense of the rest of the Union, 
but of the particular State whose citizens are to derive the advan¬ 
tages of those pursuits. Should Massachusetts, for instance, find 
it to her advantage to engage in the manufacture of woollens or 
cottons, or Pennsylvania be desirous of encouraging the working 
of her iron mines, let those States grant bounties out of their own 
treasuries, to the persons engaged in these pursuits, and should it 
be deemed advisable to encourage their manufactures by duties, 
discouraging the importation of similar articles in these respective 
States, let them make an application t<* Congress, whose consent 
would doubtless be readily given to any acts of those States, hav¬ 
ing these objects in view The manufacturers of Massachusetts 
and Pennsylvania would thus be encouraged at the expense of the 
people of these States respectively. But if they claim to do more 
than this—to encourage their industry at the expense of the indus¬ 
try of the people of the other States, to promote the manufactures 
ol the north at the expense of the agriculture of the south, by les- 
tri< tions upon commerce—in a word to secure a monopoly for 
their manufactures not only in their own market, but throughout 
the United States, then we say that the claim is unjust, and can¬ 
not be granted consistently with the principles of the Constitution, 
or the great ends of a confederated Government We shall not 
stop to inquire whether, as has been urged with great force, that 
provision of the Constitution, which confers the power upon Con¬ 
gress “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by 
securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive 
right to their respective writings and discoveries,” does not, by a 
necessary implication, deny to Congress the power of promoting 
the useful arts (which include both agriculture and manufactures) 
by any other means than those here specified. It is sufficient for 
our purpose to show that the power of promoting manufactures as 
a distinct substantive object of legislation has no where been 
granted to Congress. As to the incidental protection that may be 
derived from the rightful exercise of the power, either of regulating 
commerce, or of imposing taxes, duties, and imposts, for the le¬ 
gitimate purposes of government—this certainly may be as freely 
enjoyed by manufacturers as it must be by every other branch of 
domestic industry. But as the power to regulate commerce, con¬ 
ferred expressly for its security, cannot be fairly exerted for its 
destruction, so neither can it be perverted to the purpose of build¬ 
ing up manufacturing establishments—an object entirely beyond 
the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. So, also, the power 


16 


to levy taxes, dutie3, imposts, excises, and expressly for the given 
purpose of raising revenue, cannot be used for the discouragement 
of importations, for the purpose of promoting manufactures, with¬ 
out a gross and palpable violation of the plain meaning and intent 
of the federal compact. Acts may be passed on these subjects 
falsely purporting, on their face, to have been enacted for the pur¬ 
poses of raising revenue and regulating commerce But if in truth, 
they are designed (as the acts of 1824, 1828, and i 832, confessed¬ 
ly and avowedly have been.) for an entirely different purpose, viz: 
for the encouragement and promotion of manufactures, the viola¬ 
tion of the Constitution is not less gross, deliberate, and palpable, 
because it assumes the most dangerous of ail forms, a violation by 
perversion , the use of a power granted f.ir one purpose.for another 
and a different purpose, in relation to which, Congress has no pow¬ 
er to act at all. On the whole, even from the very brief and im¬ 
perfect view which we have here taken of this subject, we think 
we have demonstrated that the protecting system is as gross and 
palpable a violation of the Constitution, according to its true spirit, 
intent and meaning, as it is unquestionably unequal, oppressive, 
and unjust in its bearing upon the great interest of the country, and 
the several sections of the Union. 

But great as are the evils of the American system, fatal as it 
assuredly must be to the prosperity of a large portion of the 
Union, and gross as is the violation of the letter and spirit of the 
constitution it perpetrates, the consequences which must inevita¬ 
bly result from the establishment of the pernicious principles on 
which it is founded, are evils of still greater magnitude. An en¬ 
tire change in the character of the Government is the natural and 
necessary consequence of the application to the Constitution of 
those latitudinous rules of construction from which this system 
derives its Existence, and which must “consolidate the Spates by 
degrees into one sovereignty; the obvious tendency and inevitable 
result of which would be to transform the present representative 
system of the United States into a monarchy.” 

We fearlessly appeal to all considerate men, whether it be in 
(he nature of things possible to hold together such a confederacy 
as ours, by any means short of a military despotism, after it has 
degenerated into a consolidated Government—that is to say af¬ 
ter it shall come to be its established policy to exercise a general 
legislative control over the interests and pursuits of the whole 
American people. 

Can any man be so infatuated as to believe that Congress could 
regulate wisely the whole labor and capital of this vast confede¬ 
racy? Would it not be a burden too grevious to be borne, that a 
great central Government, necessarily ignorant of (he condition 
of the remote parts of the country, and regardless perhaps of their 
prosperity, should undertake to interfere with their domestic pur¬ 
suits,to control their labor, regulate their property, and to treat them 
in all respects as dependant colonies.governed not with reference to 


17 


their own interests but the interests of others ? If such a state of 
things must be admitted to be altogether intolerable, we confident¬ 
ly appeal to the sober judgment of every man who values our free 
institutions and desires to preserve them—whether the progress 
of the Government towards this result, has not of late years been 
rapid and alarming; and whether if the downward course of our 
affairs cannot be at once arrestecf—the consummation of this sys¬ 
tem is not at hand f No sooner had Congress assumed the power 
of building up manufactures by successive tariffs—calculated and 
intended to drive men from agriculture and commerce into more 
favored pursuits—than internal improvements sprung at once into 
vigorous existence. Pensions have been enlarged to an extent not 
only before unknown in any civilized country, but they have been 
established on such principles as manifest the settled purpose of 
bestowing the public treasure in gratuities to particular classes of 
persons in particular sections of the country Roads and canals 
have been commenced, and surveys made in certain quarters of 
the Union, on a scale of magnificence, which evinces a like deter¬ 
mination to distribute the public wealth into new and favored 
channels ; and it is in entire accordance both with the theory and 
practice of this new system, that the General Government should 
absorb all the authority of the States, and eventually become the 
grand depository of the powers, and the general guardian and dis¬ 
tributer of the wealth of the whole Union. It is known to all 
who have marked the course of our national affairs, that Congress 
has undertaken to create a bank, and has already assumed juris¬ 
diction over science and the arts, over education and charities, 
over roads and canals, and almost every other subject formerly 
considered as appertaining exclusively to the States, and that they 
claim and exercise an unlimited control over the appropriation of 
the public lands as well as of the publie money. On looking in¬ 
deed to the legislation of the last ten years, it is impossible to re¬ 
sist the conviction that a fatal change has taken place in the whole 
policy and entire operation of the Federal Government—that in 
every one of its departments, it is both in theory and practice 
rapidly verging tow ards consolidation Asserting judicial suprem¬ 
acy over the sovereign States, extending executive patronage and 
influence to the remotest ramifications of society, and assuming 
legislative control over every object of local concernment, there¬ 
by reducing the States to petty corporations, shorn of their sove¬ 
reignty, mere parts of one great whole, standing in the same 
relation to the Union as a county or parish does to the State of 
which it is a subordinate part. 

Such is the true character, and such the inevitable tenden¬ 
cies of the American system. And when the case thus plainly 
stated, is brought home to the bosoms of patriotic men, surely it is 
not possible to avoid the conclusion, that a political system found¬ 
ed on such principles must bear within it the seeds of premature 
dissolution—and that though it may for a season be extended, en- 


18 


larged and strengthened, through the corrupting influence of pat¬ 
ronage and power, until it shall have embraced in its serpent folds 
all the great interests of the State, still the time must come when 
the people, deprived of all other means of escape, will rise up 
in their might and release themselves from this thraldom, by one ot 
those violent convulsions by which society is uprooted from its 
foundations, and the edict of reform is written in blood. 

Against this system South Carolina has remonstrated in the most 
earnest terms. As early as 1820, there was hardly a district or 
parish in the whole State from which memorials were not forward¬ 
ed to Congress, the general language of which was that the pro¬ 
tecting system was “ utterly subversive of their rights and inter¬ 
ests.” Again, in 1823 and 1827, the people of this State rose up 
almost as one man, and declared to Congress and the world, “ that 
the protecting system was unconstitutional, oppressive and unjust.” 
But these repeated remonstrances were answered only by repeat¬ 
ed injuries and insults, by the enacting of the tariffs of 1824 and 
1828. To give greater dignity, and if possible more effect to these 
appeals, the Legislature, in Dec. 1825, solemnly declared, “ that 
it was an unconstitutional exercise of power on the part of Con¬ 
gress to lay duties to protect domestic manufactures,” and in 1828 
they caused to be presented to the Senate of the United States, 
and claimed to have recorded on its Journals, the solemn Protest 
of the State of South Carolina, denouncing this system as “ utter¬ 
ly unconstitutional, grossly unequal and oppressive, and such an 
abuse of power as was incompatible with the principles of a free 
government and the great ends of civil society,’’and that they were 
“ then only restrained from the assertion of the sovereign rights of 
the State, by the hope that the magnanimity and justice of the 
good people of the Union would effect an abandonment of a system 
partial in its nature, unjust in its operation, and not within the 
powers delegated to Congress.” And finally in December, 1830, 
it was Resolved “ That the several acts of Congress imposing du¬ 
ties on imports, for the protection of domestic manufactures, are 
highly dangerous and oppressive violations of the constitutional 
compact; and that whenever the States which are suffering under 
the oppression shall lose all reasonable hope of redress from the 
wisdom and justice of the Federal Government, it will he their 
right and duty to interpose, in their sovereign capacity, for the 
purpose of arresting the progress of the evil occasioned by the 
said unconstitutional acts.” 

Nor has South Carolina stood alone in the expression of these 
sentiments: Georgia and Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi, and 
North Carolina, have raised their voices in earnest remonstrances 
and repeated warnings. Virginia, in 1828, in responding to South 
Carolina, declared “that the Constitution of the United States, be¬ 
ing a federative compact between sovereign States, in construing 
which no common arbiter is knowrt, each State has a right to con¬ 
strue the compact tor itself; and that Virginia, as one of the high 


19 


contracting parties, feels itself bound to declare and does hereby 
most solemnly declare, its deliberate conviction, that the acts ot 
Congress usually denominated the tariff laws, passed avowedly for 
the protection of domestic manufactures, are not authorised by the 
plain construction, true intent and meaning of the Constitution.” 

Georgia, through her Legislature, pronounced this system to be 
one “which was grinding down the resources of one class of the 
States to build up and advance the prosperity of another of the 
same confederacy—and which they solemnly believed to be con¬ 
trary to the letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution,” and de¬ 
clared it to be the right of the several States, in case of any in¬ 
fraction of the general compact, “to complain, remonstrate, and 
even refuse obedience to any measure of the General Government 
manifestly against and in violation of the Constitution, that other¬ 
wise the law might be violated with impunity, and without redress, 
as often as the majority might think proper to transcend their 
powers, and the party injured would be bound to yield an impli¬ 
cit obedience to the measure, however unconstitutional, which 
must tend to annihilate all sovereignty and independence of the 
States, and consolidate all power in the General Government, 
which never was designed nor intended by the framers of the 
Constitution ” 

Alabama also protested against “the attempt to exclude the fo¬ 
reign in favor of the domestic fabrics, as the exercise of a power 
not granted by the Constitution,” and concluded by stating, “that 
she wished it to be distinctly understood, that in common with the 
other southern and south-western States, she regards the power 
asserted by the General Government to control her internal con¬ 
cerns by protecting duties, as a palpable usurpation of powers 
not given by the Constitution, and a species of oppression little 
short of legalized pillage.” 

North Carolina, in the same spirit, declared that while “it was 
conceded that Congress have the express power to lay imposts, 
she maintains that the power was given for the purpose of revenue, 
and revenue alone, and that every other use of the power is an 
usurpation on the part of Congress ” And finally, the Legisla¬ 
ture of Mississippi “Resolved, that the State of Mississippi con¬ 
curs with the States of Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, in 
their different resolutions upon the Subject of the Tariff\ Coloni¬ 
zation Society, and Internal Improvement.”* 

It has been in the face of all these remonstrances and protests, 
and in defiance of these repeated warnings and solemn declara¬ 
tions, that the recent modification of the tariff, by the act of 1828 
was effected. The period of the final extinction of the public debt 
had always been looked to as the crisis of our fate, when the poli- 


* These quotations are extracts from the original draught of the Kentucky 
Resolutions, in the hand writing of Mr. Jefferson .—(See Elliott's edition of 
Virginia Resolutions o/1798, page 61.) 



20 


cy of the country in reference to the protective system was to be 
finally settled. It was the period assigned by common consent, 
as the utmost limit of the forbearance of South Carolina, whose 
citizens felt that, in the adoption of that system, their consti¬ 
tutional rights had been trampled on, and their dearest interests 
cruelly sacrificed. 

No one could fail to perceive, that when every pretext for the 
continuance of the high duties under which the southern States 
had suffered for so many years, was taken away by the payment 
of the national debt, and the consequent relief of the Treasury 
from an annual demand of twelve millions of dollars ; that no 
reason could be given why these duties should not be brought down 
to the revenue standard, except that it was deliberately designed 
to secure to the manufacturers, forever, the monopoly they had 
so long enjoyed at the expense of the other great interests of the 
country. 

We find, accordingly, that the new tariff, which is intended to 
take effect only after the final extinguishment of the public debt, 
has been arrange 1 and adjusted with a single eye to the perpetua¬ 
tion of this system, and with an entire disregard of the just claims 
of the Plantation States. Whatever may be the amount of the 
aggregate reduction effected by this bill, (and it is not pretended 
in the latest Treasury estimate, to exceed $5,000,000, of which 
near 4,000,000 of dollars are on the unprotected articles.) it is not 
denied that it will leave a surplus of many millions in the treasu- 
ry beyond the usual expenses or necessary wants of the Govern¬ 
ment, and it is notorious, nay, it appears on the face of the bill it¬ 
self, that while duties to the amount of 40, 50, and even 100 per 
cent, are still to be levied upon the protected articles, (that is to 
say upon all the cottons, woollens, and iron, the sugar arid the salt 
and other articles embraced in the protective system.) the duties 
on the unprotected articles have been reduced greatly below the 
revenue, standard, and upwards of 3,000,000 entirely repealed ; so 
that according to this system, as now established, a large surplus 
revenue to be applied to internal improvements and other unwar¬ 
rantable purposes, is to be levied by the imposition of enormous 
taxes on the necessaries of life, the very articles received chiefly in 
exchange for Southern productions; and this has been done, in 
order to protect the industry of the north, with which ours comes 
in competition, while the articles of luxury, universally acknowl¬ 
edged to be the fittest subjects for taxation, are to be admitted du¬ 
ty free. 

Now, let it be remembered, that the very point in controversy, 
has all along been not the revenue but the protecting duties, and 
yet we see, that in all our petitions and remonstrances, <'ongress 
has been graciously pleased to make an adjustment of the tariff, 
which simply consists in taking off the duties imposed for revenue, 
while the protecting duties are allowed to remain substantially un¬ 
touched. It was not so much the amount of the imposition, as the 


21 


inequality and injustice of the protecting system, that has roused 
the people of South Carolina to determined resistance, and yet we 
find, that this inequality has been aggravated, and that injustice 
perpetuated by the deliberate adoption of a measure which was 
calculated and intended to rivet this system upon us, beyond all 
hope of relief. 

The grave and solemn question now occurs, what is to be done 
to redeem ourselves from the state of colonial vassalage into which 
we have unhappily fallen ? Shall we still continue to wait for a 
returning sense of justice on the part of our oppressors ? We are 
thoroughly persuaded that the hope can no longer be indulged, that 
the tariff majority in Congress will, of their own accord, relieve us 
from this cruel bondage—experience teaches us that this expecta¬ 
tion, so long and fondly indulged, is utterly delusive. The only 
effect of further delay must be to strengthen the hand of the op¬ 
pressor, to crush the public spirit, deaden the sensibility of the 
people to the inestimable value of their rights, and teach them the 
degrading lesson of wearing their chains in patience. It is almost 
unconceivable that any reflecting man can believe that the crisis in 
our affairs, arising from the final extinction of the public debt, 
should be suffered to pass away, without reducing the tariff to the 
revenue standard, and yet that such reduction may be expected to 
take place at some future period. What period so auspicious as 
that which has been allowed to pass away unimproved ? Is any one 
so ignorant of human nature, as not to know that the annual sur¬ 
plus which will be brought into the Treasury, under the act of 
1832, will be speedily absorbed by new and enlarged appropria¬ 
tions, serving as additional props to a system, which some vainly 
imagine to be tottering on its base, ready to fall under its own 
weight ? liven at the last session of Congress, the annual appro¬ 
priations were enlarged by several millions of dollars, in anticipa¬ 
tion of this expected surplus; and the foundation is already laid 
for its absorption ; and when this shall be accomplished, where will 
be the hopes of those who now say that the evil is to correct itself, 
and who tell us that the act of 1832, which was in fact designed to 
rivet the system upon the country forever, and was hailed by its 
friends as “ a clear, distinct, and indisputable admission of the 
principle of protection,” is to be viewed as a blessed reform, pre¬ 
senting the brightest auspices for the future? The truth unques¬ 
tionably is, that the American system is, from its very nature, pro¬ 
gressive. When its foundations were laid, it was foreseen and 
predicted that the great interests which it would build up. would 
exert a controlling influence over the legislation of the country. 
The history of the world, indeed, affords no example of a voluntary 
relinquishment, by a favored class of any pecuniary or political ad¬ 
vantage, secured to them by the laws and general policy of the 
country. Force has often torn from the hands of the oppressor his 
unrighteous gains ; but reason and argument are as vain in con¬ 
vincing the understanding, and appeals to justice and magnanimi- 


22 


ty have ever proved to be impotent in softening the hearts of those 
who are enriched under the operation of the laws passed professed¬ 
ly for the public good. Who is there that can, for one moment, 
believe that any thing short of a direct appeal to their interests, will 
induce the dependants upon the Federal Government—the wealthy 
sugar planters and iron masters, or the joirit-stock companies, who 
have millions invested in cotton and woollen factories, yielding, 
under the operation of the protecting system, an annual income of 
10 or 20 per cent, voluntarily to relinquish the advantage secured 
to them by the laws, and consent to come down to a level with the 
other classes of the community ? It is impossible. From every 
view, then, which your committee have been able to take of this 
subject, they are constrained to announce to this Convention the 
solemn truth, that after more than 10 years of patient endurance 
ofa system, which is believed by the people of this State to be fatal 
to their prosperity, and a gross, deliberate, and palpable violation 
of their constitutional rights—after the most earnest and unavailing 
appeals to that sense of justice, and those common sympathies, 
which ought to bind together the different members of a confede¬ 
rated republic, the crisis has at length arrived when the question 
must be solemnly, and finally determined, whether there remains 
any means, within the power of the State, by which these evils 
may be redressed ? 

It is useless to disguise the fact, as to attempt to delude our¬ 
selves on this subject, the time has come when the State must ei¬ 
ther adopt a decisive course of action, or we must at once abandon 
the contest. We cannot again petition—it would be idle to re¬ 
monstrate, and degrading to protest. In our estimation, it is now 
a question of liberty or slavery. It is now to be decided, whether 
we shall maintain the rights purchased by the precious blood of 
our fathers, and transmit them unimpaired to our posterity, or 
tamely surrender them without a struggle. We are constrained 
to express our solemn conviction, that, under the protecting sys¬ 
tem, we have been reduced to a state of “colonial dependence, 
suffering, and disgrace,” and that unless we now fly with the spirit 
which becomes freemen, to the rescue of our liberties, they are 
lost forever. Brought up in an ardent devotion to the union of 
the States, the people of South Carolina have long struggled against 
the conviction, that the powers of the Federal Government have 
been shamefully perverted to the purposes of injustice and oppres¬ 
sion. Bound to their brethren by the proud recollections of the 
past, and fond hopes of the future, by common struggles for liber¬ 
ties and common glories, acquired in its defence, they have been 
brought, slowly, and with the utmost reluctance, to the conclusion, 
that they are shut out from their sympathies, and made the unpiti¬ 
ed victims of an inexorable system of tyranny, which is without 
example in any country claiming to be free. Experience has at 
length taught us the lamentable truth, that, administered as the 
Government now is, and has been for several years past, in open 


23 


disregard of all the limitations prescribed by the Constitution, the 
Union itself, instead of being a blessing, must soon become a curse. 
Liberty, we are thoroughly persuaded, cannot be preserved under 
our system, without a sacred and inviolable regard, not merely 
to the letter, but the true spirit of the Constitution ; and without 
liberty, the Union would not be w r orth preserving. If then there 
were no alternatives but to submit to these evils or to seek a rem¬ 
edy even in revolution itself, we could not, without proving our¬ 
selves recreant to the principles hallowed by the example of our 
ancestors, hesitate a moment as to our choice. We should say, in 
the spirit of our fathers, “ we have counted the cost, and find no¬ 
thing so intolerable as voluntary slaveryBut we cannot bring 
ourselves for one moment to believe that the alternatives present¬ 
ed to us are revolution or slavery ; we confidently believe that 
there is a redeeming spirit in our institutions, which may, on great 
occasions, be brought to our aid, for the purpose of preserving the 
public liberty, restoring the Constitution, and effecting a regene 
ration of the Government, thereby producing a redress of intolera¬ 
ble grievances, without war, revolution, or a dissolution of the 
Union. 

These great objects, we feel assured, may even now be effec¬ 
ted, unless those who are in possession of the powers of the Gov¬ 
ernment and charged with the administration of our national 
affairs, shall resolve to persevere in a course of injustice, and 
prove by their conduct that they love the usurpation (to which 
the people of this State are unalterably determined not to submit) 
better than the Union. We believe that the redeeming spirit of 
our system is State Sovereignty, and that it results from the 
very form and structure of the Federal Government, that when 
the rights reserved to the several States are deliberately invaded, 
it is their right and their duty to interpose for the purpose of ar¬ 
resting the progress of the evil of usurpation, and to maintain 
within their respective limits the authorities and privileges belong¬ 
ing to them as independent sovereignties. If the several States 
do not possess this right, it is in vain that they claim to be sov¬ 
ereign r I hey are at once reduced to the degrading condition of 
humble dependants on the will of the Federal Government. 
South Carolina claims to be a sovereign State : she recognises no 
tribunal upon earth as above her authority. It is true she has en¬ 
tered into a solemn compact of the Union with other sovereign 
States, but she claims and will exercise the right to determine the 
extent of her obligations under that compact, nor will she consent 
that any other power shall exercise the right of judgment for her. 
And when that compact is violated by her co-States, or by the 
Government 44 which they have created, she asserts her unques¬ 
tionable right, to judge of the infractions, as well as of the mode 
and measure of redress.” South Carolina claims no right to judge 
for others. The States who are parties to the compact, must 
judge each for itself, whether that compact has been pursued or 


24 


violated, and should they differ irreconcileably in opinion, there is 
no earthly tribunal that can authoritatively decide between them. 
It was in the contemplation of a similar case, that Mr. Jefferson 
declared that if the difference could neither be compromised nor 
avoided, it was the peculiar felicity of our system, to have provi¬ 
ded a remedy in a Convention of all the Slates, by whom the 
Constitution might be so altered or amended as to remove the diffi¬ 
culty. To this tribunal, South Carolina is willing that an appeal 
should now be made, and that the constitutional compact should 
be so modified as to accomplish all the great ends for which the 
Union was formed, and the Federal Government constituted, and 
at the same time, restore the rights of the States, and preserve 
them from violation hereafter. Your Committee purposely avoided 
entering here into an examination of the nature and character 
of this claim, which South Carolina asserts, to interpose her sove¬ 
reignty, for the protection of her citizens from the operation of un¬ 
constitutional laws, and the preservation of her own reserved rights. 
In an address, which will be submitted to the Convention, this sub¬ 
ject will be fully examined, and they trust that it will be made to 
appear, to the satisfaction of every dispassionate mind, that in 
adopting the ord'nance which the committee herewith report, de¬ 
claring the tariff law's passed for the protection of domestic manu¬ 
factures, null and void, and not law, and directing the legislature 
to provide, that the same shall not be enforced within the limits of 
this State,—South Carolina will be asserting her unquestionable 
rights, and in no way violating her obligations under the federal 
compact. 

The Committee cannot dismiss this point, however, even for the 
present, without remarking that in asserting the principles, and 
adopting the course which they are about to recommend, South 
Carolina will only be carrying out the doctrines which were assert¬ 
ed by Virginia and Kentucky in 1798 , and which have been sanc¬ 
tified by the high authority of Thomas Jefferson It is from the 
pen of this great apostle of liberty that we have been instructed, 
that to the constitutional compact “ each State acceded as a State, 
and is an integral party, its co-States forming as to itself the 
other party/’ that “ they alone being parties to the compact are 
solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised 
under it ; Congress being not a party but merely the creature of 
the compact,” that it becomes a sovereign State “ to submit to un¬ 
delegated and consequently unlimited power in no man or body 
of men on earth—that in cases of abuse of the delegated powers , 
the members ofthe General Government being chosen by the people, 
a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy, but 
where powers are assumed which have not been delegated [the 
very case now before us] a nullification of the act is the 
rightful remedy ; that any State has a natural right in cases 
not within the compact a [casus non feederis~] to nullify of then- 
own authority all assumption of pow er by others within their limits, 


25 


and that without this right they would be under the dominion, 
absolute and unlimited, of whomsoever might exercise the right 
°f judgment for them,” and that in case of acts being passed 
by Congress “so palpably against the Constitution as to a- 
mount to an undisguised declaration, that the compact is not 
meant to be the measure of the powers of the General Government, 
but that it will proceed to exercise over the States all pow¬ 
ers whatsoever, by seizing the rights of the States, and con¬ 
solidating them in the hands of the General Government, with 
a power assumed of binding the States, not merely in cases made 
federal, but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made,not with their 
consent, but by others against their consent, it would be the 
duty of the States to declare the acts void, and of no force, and 
that each should take measures of its own for providing that 
neither such acts, nor any other of the General Government not 
plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be 
exercised within their respective territories.*” 

In acting on these great and essential truths, South Caroli¬ 
na surely cannot err. She is convinced and has so declared to 
Congress and the world, that the protecting system is in all its 
branches a “ gross, deliberate, and palpable violation of the Con¬ 
stitution.” She believes that after having exhausted every other 
means of redress in vain, it is her right, and that it has now be¬ 
come her solemn duty, to interpose for arresting the evil with¬ 
in her own limits by declaring said acts “ to be null and void, 
and no law, and taking measures of her own that they shall not 
be enforced within her territory.” That duty she means to per¬ 
form, and to leave the consequences in the hands of him, with 
whom are the issues of life and the destinies of nations. 

South Carolina will continue to cherish a sincere attachment to 
the union of the States, and will to the utmost of her power en¬ 
deavour to preserve it, “ and believes that for this end, it is her 
duty to watch over and oppose any infraction of those principles 
which constitute the only basis of that union, because a faithful 
observance of them can alone secure its existence.” She venera¬ 
tes the constitution and will protect and defend it “ against 
every aggression either foreign or domestic,” but above all, she 
estimates as beyond all price her liberty, which she is unalter¬ 
ably determined never to surrender whilst she has the power 
to maintain it. Influenced by these views, your committee re¬ 
port herewith for the adoption of the Convention a solemn Decla¬ 
ration and Ordinance. 


* For the proceedings of South Carolina, and the other States here quoted, 
see Elliott’s Virginia Resolutions of 1798, page 74, and the Congressional 
Documents of the years referred to. 



26 

AST OHDINANCE 

To Nullify certain Acts of the Congress of the United 
States, purporting to be laws laying duties and 
imposts onthe Importation of Foreign Commodities. 

Whereas, the Congress of the United States by various Acts, 
purporting to be Acts laying duties and imposts on foreign im¬ 
ports, but in reality intended for the protection of Domestic Man¬ 
ufactures, and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals 
engaged in particular employments, at the expense and to the in¬ 
jury and oppression of other classes and individuals, and by wholly 
exempting from taxation certain foreign commodities, such as are 
not produced or manufactured in the United States, to afford a 
pretext for imposing higher and excessive duties on articles simi¬ 
lar to those intended to be protected, hath exceeded its just pow¬ 
ers under the constitution which confers on it no authority to 
afford such protection, and hath violated the true meaning and in¬ 
tent of the Constitution, which provides forequality in imposing 
the burdens of taxation upon the several States and portions of the 
Confederacy—And, whereas the said Congress, exceeding its just 
power to impose taxes and collect revenue for the purpose of 
effecting and accomplishing the specific objects and purposes 
which the Constitution of the United States authorizes it to effect 
and accomplish, hath raised and collected unnecessary revenues 
for objects unauthorized by the Constitution. 

We, therefore, the People of the State of South Carolina in 
Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby de¬ 
clared and ordained, that the several Acts and parts of Acts of 
the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the 
imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign com¬ 
modities, and now having actual operation and effect within the 
United States, and more especially an Act entitled “an Act in al¬ 
teration of the several Acts imposing duties on imports,” approved 
on the 19th day of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty- 
eight, and also an Act entitled “an Act to alter and amend the 
several acts imposing duties on imports,” approved onthe 14th 
day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, are un¬ 
authorised by the Constitution of the United States, and violate 
the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null, void and no law, 
nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens; and all promi¬ 
ses, contracts and obligations made or entered into, or to be made 
or entered into, with the purpose to secure the duties imposed by 
the said Acts, and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter 
had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and 
void. 

And it is further ordained, that it shall not be lawful for any of the 
constituted authorities, whether of this State or of the United States, 
to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the said Acts within 


27 


the limits of this State; but that it shall be the duty of the Legisla¬ 
ture to adopt such Acts as may be necessary to give full effect to 
this Ordinance, and to prevent the enforcement and arrest the ope¬ 
ration of the said Acts and parts of Acts of the Congress of the Uni¬ 
ted States within the limits of this State, from and after the 1st day 
of February next, and the duty of all other constituted authorities, 
and of all persons residing or being within the limits of this State, 
and they are hereby required and enjoined to obey and give effect 
to this Ordinance, and such acts and measures of the Legislature as 
may be passed or adopted in obedience thereto. 

And it is further ordained, That in no case of law or equity, deci¬ 
ded in the Courts of this State, wherein shall be drawn in question 
the authority of this Ordinance, or the validity of such Act or Acts 
of the Legislature as may be passed for the purpose of giving effect 
thereto or the validity of the aforesaid Acts of Congress, imposing 
duties, shall any appeal be taken, or allowed to the Supreme Court 
of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted 
or allowed for that purpose, and if any such appeal shall be attempted 
to be taken, the Courts of this State shall proceed to execute and 
enforce their judgments, according to the laws and usages of the 
States, without reference to such attempted appeal; and the person or 
persons attempting to take such appeal may be dealt with as for 
a contempt of the court. 

And it is further ordained, That all eVsons now holding any office of honor 
profit or trust, civil or military, under this State, (members of the Legislature 
excepted) shall, within such time, and in such manner as the Legislature shall 
prescribe, take an oath well and truly to obey, execute and enforce this ordi¬ 
nance, and such act or acts of the Legislature as may be passed in pursuance 
thereof, according to the true intent and meaning of the same ; and on the 
neglect or moission of any such person or persons so to do, his or then office 
or offices, shall lie forthwith vacated, and shall be filled up, as if such person or 
persons were dead or had resigned, and ro person hereafter elected to any office 
of honor, profit or trust, civil or military, shall, until the Legislature shall other¬ 
wise provide and direct, enter on the execution of his office, or be in any res¬ 
pect competent to discharge the duties thereof, until he shall, in like manner, 
have taken a similar oath; and no juror shall he impannelled in any of the courts 
of this Stale, in any cause in which shall be in question this ordinance, or any 
act of the Legislature passed in pursuance thereof, unless he shall first, in addi 
tion to the usual oath, have taken an oath, that he will well and truly obey, ex¬ 
ecute and enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the Legislature, as 
may he passed to carry the same into operation and effect, according to the 
true intent and meaning thereof. 

And we, the People of South Carolina, to the end, that it may he fully un¬ 
derstood bv the Government of the United States, and the people of the co- 
States, that we are determined to maintain this, our ordinance and declaration, 
at every hazard,do further declare, that we will not submit to the application 
of force, on the part of the Federal Government, to reduce this State to obe¬ 
dience ; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act author¬ 
izing the employment of any military or naval force against the State of South 
Carolina, her constituted authorities or citizens, or any act abolishing or clos¬ 
ing the ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstr ucting the free in¬ 
gress or egress of vessels, to and from the said ports, or any other act, on the part 
of the Federal Government to coerce this State, shut up her ports, destroy her 
commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, other. 


/ 


28 


wise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the 
longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union, and that the people of this 
State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to 
maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other 
States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate Government, and do 
all other acts and things which sovereign and indcpendentStates may of right do. 


ADBHESS 

To the People of the United States, bv the Convention of South 
Carolina. 

To the People of Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, North Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, Vermont, New- 
Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Georgia, Delaware, Rhode Island, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, 
Illinois, Alabama, and Missouri. 

We the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, 
have solemnly and deliberately declared, in our paramount sove¬ 
reign capacity, that the act of Congress approved the 19th day of 
May 1828, and the act approved the 14th July 1832, altering and 
amending the several acts imposing duties on imports, are uncon¬ 
stitutional, and therefore, absolutely void, and of no binding force 
within the limits of this State ; and for the purpose of carrying 
this declaration into full and complete effect, we have invested 
the Legislature with ample powers, and made it the duty of all 
the functionaries and all the citizens of the State, on their allegi¬ 
ance to co-operate in enforcing the aforesaid declaration. 

In resorting to this important measure, to which we have been 
impelled by the most sacred of all the duties which a free people 
can owe either to the memory of their ancestors or to the claims 
of their posterity, we feel that it is due to the intimate political 
relation which exists between South Carolina and the other States 
of this confederacy, that we should present a clear and distinct 
exposition of the principles on which we have acted, and of the 
causes by which we have been reluctantly constrained to assume 
this attitude of sovereign resistance in relation to the usurpations 
of the Federal Government. 

For this purpose it will be necessary to state, briefly, what we 
conceive to be the relation created by the Federal Constitution, 
between the States and the General Government; and also what 
we conceive to be the true character and practical operation or 
the system of protecting duties, as it affects our rights, our inter¬ 
ests, and our liberties. 

We hold then, that on their separation from the Croivn of Great 
Britain, the several Colonies became free and independent States, 



29 


each enjoying the separate and independent right of self govern¬ 
ment ; and that no authority can be exercised over them or within 
their limits, but by their consent, respectively given as States. It 
is equally true, that the Constitution of the United States is a 
compact formed between the several States, acting as sovereign 
communities ; that the government created by it is a joint agency 
of the States, appointed to execute the powers enumerated and 
granted by that instrument; that all its acts not intentionally 
authorised, are of themselves essentially null and void, and that 
the States have the right, in the same sovereign capacity in which 
they adopted the federal Constitution, to pronounce, in the last 
resort, authoritative judgment on the usurpations of the federal 
government, and to adopt such measures as they may deem neces¬ 
sary and expedient to arrest the operation of the unconstitutional 
acts of that government within their respective limits. Such we 
deem to be the inherent rights of the States—rights, in the very 
nature of things, absolutely inseparable from sovereignty. Nor is 
the duty of a State, to arrest an unconstitutional and oppressive 
act of the federal government less imperative, than the right is 
incontestible. Each State, by ratifying the federal Constitution, 
and becoming a member of the confederacy, contracted an obliga¬ 
tion to “protect and defend” that instrument, as well by resisting 
the usurpations of the federal government, as by sustaining that 
government in the exercise of the powers actually conferred 
upon it. And the obligation of the oath which is imposed, under 
the Constitution, on every functionary of the States, to “preserve, 
protect, and defend” the federal Constitution, as clearly compre¬ 
hends the duty of protecting and defending it against the usur¬ 
pations of the federal government, as that of protecting and de¬ 
fending it against violation in any other form or from any other 
quarter. 

It is true that in ratifying the Federal Constitution, the State 
placed a large and important portion of the rights of their citizens 
under the joint protection of all the States, with a view to their 
more effectual security ; but it is not less true than they reserved 
a portion still larger and not less important under their own im¬ 
mediate guardianship, and in relation to which their original ob¬ 
ligation to protect their citizens, from whatever quarter assailed, 
remains unchanged and undiminished. 

But clear and undoubted as we regard the right, and sacred as 
we regard the duty of the States to interpose their sovereign pow¬ 
er for the purpose of protecting their citizens from the unconsti¬ 
tutional and oppressive acts of the Federal Government, yet we 
are as clearly of the opinion that nothing short of that high moral 
and political necessity, which results from acts of usurpation,sub¬ 
versive of the rights and liberties of the people, should induce a 
member of this confederacy to resort to this interposition. Such, 
however, is the melancholy and painful necessity under which we 
have declared the acts of Congress imposing protecting duties, 


30 


null and void within the limits of South Carolina. The spirit and 
the principles which animated your ancestors and ours in the 
councils and in the fields of their common glory, forbid us to sub¬ 
mit any longer to a system of Legislation, now become the estab¬ 
lished policy of the Federal Government, by which we are reduc¬ 
ed to a condition of colonial vassalage, in all its aspects more op¬ 
pressive and intolerable than that from which our common ances¬ 
tors relieved themselves by the war of the revolution. There is 
no right which enters more essentially into a just conception of 
liberty, than that of the free and unrestricted use of the produc¬ 
tions of our industry. This clearly involves the right of carrying 
the productions of that industry wherever they can be most ad¬ 
vantageously exchanged, whether in foreign or domestic markets. 
South Carolina produces, almost exclusively, agricultural staples, 
which derive their principal value from the demand for them in 
foreign countries. Under these circumstances, her natural mar¬ 
kets are abroad ; and restrictive duties imposed upon her inter¬ 
course with those markets, diminish the exchangeable value of her 
productions very nearly to the full extent of those duties. 

Under a system of free trade, the aggregate crop of South Caro¬ 
lina could be exchanged fora larger quantity of manufactures, by 
at least one third, than it can be now exchanged for under the 
protecting system. It is no less evident, that the value of that 
crop is diminished by the protecting system very nearly, if not 
precisely, to the extent that the aggregate quantity of manufac¬ 
tures which can be obtained for it, is diminished. It is, indeed, 
strictly and philosophically true, that the quantity of consumable 
commodities which can be obtained for the cotton and rice annu¬ 
ally produced by the industry of the State, is the precise measure 
of their aggregate value. But for the prevalent and habitual error 
of confounding the money price with the exchangeable value of 
our agricultural staples, these propositions would be regarded as 
self evident. If the protecting duties were repealed, one hundred 
bales of cotton or one hundred barrels of rice, would purchase as 
large a quantity of manufactures, as one hundred and fifty will 
now purchase The annual income of the State, its means of 
purchasing and consuming the necessaries and comforts and lux¬ 
uries of life, would be increased in a corresponding degree. 

Almost the entire crop of S. Carolina, amounting annually to 
more than six millions of dollars, is ultimately exchanged either 
for foreign manufactures, subject to protecting duties, or for 
similar domestic manufactures. The natural value of that crop 
would be all the manufactures which we could obtain for it, under 
a system of unrestricted commerce. The artificial value, pro¬ 
duced by the unjust and unconstitutional Legislation of Congress, 
is only such a part of those manufactures as will remain after 
paying a duty of fifty per cent, to the Government, or. to speak 
with more precision, to the Northern manufactures. To make 
this obvious to the humblest comprehension, let it be supposed 


31 


that the whole of the present crop should be exchanged, by the 
planters themselves, for those foreign manufactures, tor which it 
is destined, by the inevitable course cf trade, to be ultimately 
exchanged, either by themselves or their agents. 

Let it be also assumed, in conformity with the facts of the 
case, that New Jersey, for example, produces of the very 
same description of manufactures, a quantity equal to that 
which is purchased by the cotton crop of S. Carolina. We have, 
then, two States of the same confederacy, bound to bear an equal 
share of the burthens, and entitled to enjoy an equal share of the 
benefits of the common government, with precisely the same 
quantity of productions, of the same quality and kind, produced 
by their lawful industry. We appeal to your candor, and to 
your sense of justice, to say whether South Carolina has not a 
title as sacred and indefeisible to the full and undiminished en¬ 
joyment of these productions of her industry, acquired by the 
combined operations of agriculture and commerce, as New Jersey 
can have to the like enjoyment of similar productions of her in¬ 
dustry, acquired by the process of manufacture ? Upon no prin¬ 
ciple of Constitutional right—upon no principle of human reason 
or justice, can any discrimination be drawn between the titles of 
South Carolina and New Jersey to these productions of their cap¬ 
ital and labor. Yet what is the discrimination actually made by 
the unjust, unconstitutional and partial Legislation of Congress ? 
A duty, on an average, of fifty per cent, is imposed upon the 
productions of South Carolina, while no duty at all is imposed 
upon the similar productions of New Jersey ! The inevitable 
result is, that the manufactures thus lawfully acquired by the 
honest industry of South Carolina are worth, annually, three 
millions of dollars less to her citizens than the very same quanti¬ 
ty of the very same description of manufactures are worth to the 
citizens of New Jersey—a difference of value produced exclu¬ 
sively by the operation of the protecting system. 

No ingenuity can either evade or refute this proposition. The 
very axioms of geometry are not more self-evident. For even if 
the planters of South Carolina, in the case supposed, were to sell 
and not consume these productions of their industry, it is plain 
that they could obtain no higher price for them, after paying du¬ 
ties to the amount of S3,000,000, than the manufacturers of New- 
Jersey would obtain for the same quantity of the same kind of 
manufactures, without paying any duty at all. 

This single view of the subject, exhibits the enormous inequali¬ 
ty and injustice of the protecting system in such a light, that we 
feel the most consoling confidence that we shall be fully justified 
by the impartial judgment of posterity, whatever may be the issue 
of this unhappy controversy. We confidently appeal to our con¬ 
federate States, and to the whole world, to decide whether the an¬ 
nals of human Legislation furnishes a parallel instance of injus¬ 
tice and oppression perpetrated under the forms of a free govern- 


\ 


32 


ment. However it may be disguised bv the complexity of the 
process by which it is effected, it is nothing less than the mon¬ 
strous outrage of taking three millions of dollars annually, from 
the value of the productions of S. Carolina and transferring it to 
the people of other and distant communities. No human Govern¬ 
ment can rightfully exercise such a power. It violates the eternal 
principles of natural justice, and converts the Government into a 
mere instrument of legislative plunder. Of all the governments 
on the face of the earth, the Federal Government has the least 
shadow of a constitutional right to exercise such a power. It 
was created principally, and almost exclusively, for the purpose 
of protecting, improving, and extending that very commerce, 
which for the last ten years, all its powers have been most unnat¬ 
urally and unrighteously perverted to cripple and destroy. The 
power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations,” was granted 
obviously for the preservation of that commerce. The most im¬ 
portant of all the duties which the Federal Government owes 
to South Carolina, under the compact of Union, is the protection 
and defence of her foreign commerce, against all the enemies by 
whom it may be assailed. And in what manner has this duty 
been discharged. All the powers of the earth, by their commer¬ 
cial restrictions, and all the pirates of the ocean, by their lawless 
violence, could not have done so much to destroy our commerce, 
as has been done by that very Government, to which its guardian¬ 
ship has been committed by the Federal Constitution. The com¬ 
merce of South Carolina consists in exchanging the staple produc¬ 
tions of her soil for the manufactures of Europe. It is a lawful 
commerce. It violates the rights of no class of people in any 
portion of the confederacy.—It is this very commerce, therefore, 
which the Constitution has enjoined it upon Congress to encour¬ 
age, protect, and defend by such regulations as may be necessary 
to accomplish that object. But instead of that protection, which 
is the only tie of our allegiance, as individual citizens, to the 
Federal Government, we have seen a gigantic system of restric¬ 
tions gradually reared up, and at length brought to a fatal matu¬ 
rity, of which it is the avowed object and must be the inevitable 
result, to sweep our commerce from the great highway of nations, 
and cover our land with poverty and ruin. 

Even the States most deeply interested in the maintenance of the 
protecting system will admit, that it is the interest of South Caro¬ 
lina to carry on a commerce of exchanges with foreign countries, 
free from restrictions, prohibitory burthens or incumbrances of 
any kind. We feel, and we know, that the vital interests of the 
State, are involved in such a commerce. It would be a down¬ 
right insult to our understandings, to tell us that our interests are 
not injured, deeply injured by those prohibitory duties, intended 
and calculated to prevent us from obtaining the cheap manufac- 
turesof foreign countries for our staples,andto compel us to receive 
for them the dear manufactures of our domestic establishments 


.33 


°r pay the penalty of the protecting duties for daring to exercise 
one of the most sacred of our national rights. What right, then, 
human or divine, have the manufacturing States—for we regard 
the Federal Government, as a mere instrument in their hands— 
to prohibit South Carolina, directly, or indirectly, from going to 
her natural markets, and exchanging the rich productions of her 
soil, without restriction or incumbrance, for such foreign articles 
as will most conduce to the wealth and prosperity of her citizens? 
It will not surely be pretended—for truth and decency equally 
forbid the allegation—that in exchanging our productions for the 
cheaper manufactures of Europe, we violate any right of the do¬ 
mestic manufactures, however gratifying it might be to them, if 
we could purchase their inferior productions at higher prices. 

Upon what principle, then, can the State of South Carolina be 
called upon to submit to a system, which excludes her from her 
natural markets and the manifold benefits of that enriching com¬ 
merce which a kind and beneficent Providence has provided to 
connect her with the family of nations, by the bonds of mutual in¬ 
terest ? But one answer can be given to this question. It is in 
vain that we attempt to disguise the fact, mortifying as it must be, 
that the principle by which South Carolina is thus excluded, is in 
strict propriety of language, and to all rational intents and purpo- 
poses, a principle of colonial dependence and vassalage, in all re¬ 
spects identical with that which restrained our forefathers from 
trading with any manufacturing nation of Europe, other than Great 
Britain South Carolina now bears the same relation to the man¬ 
ufacturing States of this confederacy, that the Anglo-American 
colonies bore to the mother country, with the single exception that 
our burthens are incomparably more oppressive than those of our 
ancestors. Our time, our pride, and the occasion, equally forbid 
us to trace out the degrading analogy. We leave that to the his¬ 
torian who shall record the judgment which an impartial posterity 
will pronounce upon the eventful transactions of this day. 

It is in vain that we attempt to console ourselves by the empty 
and unreal mockery of our representation in Congress. As to all 
those great and vital interests of the State which are affected by 
the protecting system, it would be better that she had no represen¬ 
tation in that body. It serves no other purpose but to conceal 
the chains which fetter our liberties under the vain and empty 
forms ot a representative Government. In the enactment of the 
protecting system, the majority of Congress, is in strict propriety 
of speech, an irresponsible despotism. A very brief analysis will 
render this clear to every understanding. What, then, we ask, is 
involved in the idea of political responsibility, in the imposition of 
public burthens? It clearly implies that those who impose the 
burthens, should be responsible to those who bear them. Every 
representative in Congress should be responsible, not only to his 
own immediate constituents, but through them and their common 
participation in the burthens imposed, to the constituents of every 


34 


other representative. If in the enactment of a protecting tariff, 
the majority in Congress imposed upon their own constituents the 
same burthens which they impose upon the people of South Caro¬ 
lina, that majority would act under all the restraints of political 
responsibility, and we should have the best security which human 
wisdom has yet devised against oppressive legislation. 

But the fact is precisely the reverse of this. The majority in 
Congress, in imposing protecting duties which are utterly destruct¬ 
ive of the interests of South Carolina, not only impose no burthens, 
but actually confer enriching bounties upon their constituents, pro¬ 
portioned to the burthens they impose upon us. Under these cir¬ 
cumstances, the principle of representative responsibility, is per¬ 
verted into a principle of absolute despotism. It is this very tie, 
binding the majority of Congress to execute the will of their con¬ 
stituents, which makes them our inexorable oppressors. They dare 
not open their hearts to the sentiments of human justice, or to the 
feelings of human sympathy. They are tyrants by the very ne¬ 
cessity of their position,however elevated may be their principles, 
in their individual capacities. 

The grave question, then, which we have had to determine, as 
the sovereign power of the State, upon the awful responsibility 
under which we have acted, is, whether we will voluntarily sur¬ 
render the glorious inheritance, purchased and consecrated by the 
toils, the sufferings and the blood of an illustrious ancestry, or 
transmit that inheritance to our posterity untarnished and undi¬ 
minished ? We could not hesitate in deciding this question. We 
have, therefore, deliberately and unalterably resolved, that we will 
no longer submit to a system of oppression, which reduces us to 
the degrading condition of tributary vassals; and which would 
reduce our posterity, in a few generations, to a state of poverty 
and wretchedness, that would stand in melancholy contrast with 
the beautiful and delightful region in which the Providence of 
God has cast our destinies. Having formed this resolution, with 
a full view of all its bearings, and of all its probable and possible 
issues, it is due to the gravity of the subject and the solemnity of 
the occasion, that we should speak to our confederate brethren in 
the plain language of frankness and truth. Though we plant our¬ 
selves upon the Constitution and the immutable principles of 
justice, and intend to operate exclusively through the civil tribu¬ 
nals and civil functionaries of the State, yet we will throw oft* this 
oppression at every hazard. We believe our remedy to be essen¬ 
tially peaceful. We believe the Federal Government has no 
shadow of right or authority to act against a sovereign State of the 
Confederacy in any form, much less to coerce it by military 
power. But we are aware of the diversities of human opinion ; 
and have seen too many proofs of the infatuation of human pow¬ 
er, not to have looked with the most anxious concern to the possi¬ 
bility of a resort to military or naval force on the part of the 
Federal Government;—and in order to obviate the possibility of 


35 


having the history of this contest stained by a single drop of fra¬ 
ternal blood, we have solemnly and irrevocably resolved, that we 
will regard such a resort as a dissolution of the political ties which 
connect us with our confederate States; and will, forthwith, pro¬ 
vide for the organization of a new and separate government. 

We implore you, and particularly the manufacturing States, 
not to believe that we have been actuated, in adopting this reso¬ 
lution, by any feeling of resentment, or hostility towards them ; 
or by a desire to dissolve the political bonds, which have so long 
united our common destinies. We still cherish that rational de¬ 
votion to the Union, by which this State has been pre-eminently 
distinguished, in all times past. But that blind and idolatrous 
devotion, which would bow down and worship Oppression and 
Tyranny, veiled under that consecrated title,—if it ever existed 
among us, is now vanished for ever. Constitutional Liberty 
is the only idol of our political devotion ; and, to preserve that, 
we will not hesitate a single moment, to surrender the Union it¬ 
self, if the sacrifice be necessary. If it had pleased God to cover 
our eyes with ignorance—if he had not bestowed upon us the un¬ 
derstanding to comprehend the enormity of oppression under 
which we labor—we might submit to it without absolute degrada¬ 
tion and infamy. But the gifts of Providence cannot be neglect¬ 
ed, or abused, with impunity. A people, who deliberately sub¬ 
mit to oppression, with a full knowledge that they are oppressed, 
are fit only to be slaves ; and all history proves that such people 
will soon find a master. It is the pre-existing spirit of slavery, in 
the people, that has made tyrants in all ages of the world. No 
tyrant ever made a slave—no community however small, having 
the spirit of freemen, ever yet had a master. The most illustri¬ 
ous of those States, which have given to the world examples of 
human freedom, have occupied Territories, not larger than some 
of the Districts of South Carolina ; while the largest masses of 
population, that were ever united under a common government, 
have been the abject, spiritless and degraded slaves of despotic 
rulers. We sincerely hope, therefore, that no portion of the 
States of this Confederacy, will permit themselves to be deluded 
into any measures of rashness, by the vain imagination, that South 
Carolina will vindicate her rights and liberties, with a less inflex¬ 
ible and unfaltering resolution, with a population of some half a 
million, than she would do with a population of twenty millions. 

It does not belong to Freemen to count the costs, and calculate 
the hazards of vindicating their rights and defending their liber¬ 
ties ; and even if we should stand alone in the worst possible e- 
mergency of this great controversy, without the co-operation or 
encouragement of a single State of the confederacy,we will march 
forward with an unfaltering step, until we have accomplished the 
object of this great enterprise. 

Having now presented, for the consideration of the Federal 
Government and our confederate States, the fixed and final de- 


36 


termination of this State in relation to the protecting system, it 
remainsforus to submit a plan of taxation in which we would be 
willing to acquiesce, in a spirit of liberal concession, provided we 
are met in due time and in a becoming spirit by the States inter¬ 
ested in the protection of manufactures. 

We believe that upon every just and equitable principle of 
taxation, the whole list of protected articles should be imported 
free of all duty, and that the revenue derived from import du¬ 
ties, should be raised exclusively from the unprotected articles, 
or that whenever a duty is imposed upon protected articles im¬ 
ported, an excise duty of the same rate should be imposed upon 
all similar articles manufactured in the United States. This 
would be as near an approach to perfect equality as could possi¬ 
bly be made, in a system of indirect taxation. No substantial 
reason can be given for subjecting manufactures obtained from 
abroad in exchange for the productions of South Carolina to the 
smallest duty, even for revenue, which would not show that sim¬ 
ilar manufactures made in the United States, should be subject 
to the very same rate of duty. The former, not less than the 
latter, are to every rational intent, the productions of domestic 
industry, and the mode of acquiring the one, is as lawful and 
more conducive to the public prosperity, than that of acquiring 
the other. 

But we are willing to make a large offering to preserve the 
Union ; and with a distinct declaration that it is a concession on 
our part, we will consent that the same rate of duty may be im¬ 
posed upon the protected articles that shall be imposed upon the 
unprotected, provided that no more revenue be raised than is ne¬ 
cessary to meet the demands of the Government for Constitu¬ 
tional purposes, and provided also, that a duty, substantially uni¬ 
form, be imposed upon all foreign imposts. 

It is obvious, that even under this arrangement, the manufac¬ 
turing States would have a decided advantage over the planting 
States. For it is demonstrably evident that, as communities, the 
manufacturing States would bear no part of the burthens of Fed¬ 
eral Taxation, so far as the revenue should be derived from pro¬ 
tected articles. The earnestness with which their representa¬ 
tives seek to increase the duties on these articles, is conclusive 
proof that those duties are bounties, and not burthens, to their 
constituents. As at least two-thirds of the Federal revenue 
would be raised from protected articles, under the proposed 
modification of the Tariff, the manufacturing States would be en¬ 
tirely exempted from all participation in that proportion of the 
public burthens. 

Under these circumstances we cannot permit ourselves to be¬ 
lieve for a moment, that in a crisis marked by such portentous 
and fearful omens, those States can hesitate in acceding to this 
arrangement, when they perceive that it will be the means, and 
possibly the only means, of restoring the broken harmony of this 
great Confederacy. 


37 


They must assuredly have the strongest of human inducements, 
aside from all considerations of justice, to adjust this controver¬ 
sy, without pushing it to extremities. This can be accomplished 
only by the proposed modification of the Tariff, or by the call of 
a general Convention of all the States. If South Carolina, should 
be driven out of the Union, all the other Planting States, and 
some of the Western States, would follow by an almost absolute 
necessity. Can it be believed that Georgia, Mississippi, Tennes¬ 
see, and even Kentucky,would continue to pay atribute of fifty 
per cent, upon their consumption, to the Northern States, for the 
privilege of being united to them, when they could receive all 
their supplies through the ports of South Carolina, without paying 
a single,cent for tribute ? 

The separation of South Carolina would inevitably produce a 
general dissolution of the Union; and as a necessary consequence, 
the protecting system, with all its pecuniary bounties to the North¬ 
ern States, and its pecuniary burthens upon the Southern States, 
would be utteily overthrown and demolished, involving the ruin 
of thousands in the manufacturing States. 

By these powerful considerations, connected with their own 
pecuniary interests, we beseech them to pause and contemplate 
the disastrous consequences which will certainly result from an 
obstinate perseverance on their part, in maintaining the protect¬ 
ing system. With them, it is a question merely of pecuniary in¬ 
terest, connected with no shadow of right, and involving no prin¬ 
ciple of liberty. With us, it is a question involving our most 
sacred rights —those very rights which our common ancestors left 
to us as a common inheritance, purchased by their common toils 
and consecrated by their blood. It is a question of liberty on the 
one hand, and slavery on the other. If we submit to this system 
of unconstitutional oppression, we shall voluntarily sink into 
slavery and transmit that ignominious inheritance to our children. 
We will not, we cannot, we dare not submit to this degradation, 
and our resolve is fixed and unalterable that a protecting tariff 
shall be no longer enforced within the limits of South Carolina. 
We stand upon the principles of everlasting justice, and no hu¬ 
man power shall drive us from our position'. 

We have not the slightest apprehension that the general govern¬ 
ment will attempt to force this system upon us by military pow¬ 
er. We have warned our brethren of the consequences of such 
an attempt. But if, notwithstanding, such a course of madness 
should be pursued, we here solemnly declare that this system of 
oppression shall never prevail in South Carolina, until none but 
slaves are left to submit to it We would infinitely prefer that 
the territory of the State should be the cemetry of freemen, than 
the habitation of slaves. Actuated by these principles, and ani¬ 
mated by these sentiments, we will cling to the pillars of the 
temple of our liberties, and if it must fall, we will perish amidst 
the ruins. 


ADDRESS 

TO THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 


Fellow Citizens :— 

The situation in which you have been placed by the usurpations 
of the Federal Government, is one which you so peculiarly feel as to 
render all reference to it at this moment unnecessary. For the 
last ten years, the subject of your grievances has been presented to 
you. This subject you have well considered. You have viewed it 
in all its aspects, bearings, and tendencies, and you seem more and 
more confirmed in the opinion, expressed by both branches of the 
Legislature, that the Tariff, in its operations is not only “ grossly un¬ 
equal and unjust, but is such an abuse of power as is incompatible 
with the principles of a free government, and the great ends of civil 
society;” and that if persisted in, “ the fate of this State would be 
poverty and utter desolation.” Correspondent with this conviction, a 
disposition is manifested in every section of the country, to arrest by 
some means or other, the progress of this intolerable evil. This dis¬ 
position having arisen, from no sudden excitement, but having been 
gradually formed by the free and temperate discussions of the Press, 
there is no reason to believe that it can ever subside, by any means 
short of the removal of the urgent abuse ; and it is under this general 
conviction, that we have been convened to take into consideration, 
not only the character and extent of your grievances, but also the 
mode and measure of redress. 

This duty, Fellow Citizens, we have discharged to the best of our 
judgments, and the result of our deliberations, will be found in the 
Declaration and Ordinance just passed by us—founded on the 
great and undeniable truth, that in all cases of palpable, oppressive, 
and dangerous infraction of the Federal compact, each State has a 
right to annul, and to render inoperative within its limits all such 
unauthorized acts. After the luminous expositions which have been 
already furnished by so many great minds, that the exercise of this 
right is compatible with the first principles of our anomalous scheme 
of government, it would be superfluous here to state at length, the 
reasons by which this mode of redress is to be sustained. A defer¬ 
ence however for the opinions of those of our fellow citizens, who have 
hitherto dissented from us, demands, that we should briefly state the 
principal ground upon which we place the right, and the expediency 
of Nullification 

The constitution of the United States, as is admitted by contem¬ 
poraneous writers, is a compact between sovereign States. Though 
the subject matter of that compact, was a Government, the powers 
of which Government , were to operate to a certain extent upon the 
people of those sovereign States, aggregately, and not upon the State 
authorities, as is usual in confederacies, still the constitution is a con¬ 
federacy. First: It is a confederacy, because in its foundations, 
it possesses not one single feature of nationality .—The people of the 


39 


separate States, as distinct political communities, ratified the consti¬ 
tution, each State acting for itself, and binding its own citizens, and 
not those of any other State. The act of ratification declares it “to 
be binding on the States, so ratifying. The States are its authors— 
their power created it— their voice clothed it with authority—the Go¬ 
vernment it formed is in reality their Government, and the Union of 
which it is the bond, is a Union of States, and not of individuals.”— 
Secondly : It is a confederacy, because the extent of the powers of 
the Government, depends, not upon the people of the United States 
collectively /, but upon the State Legislature or on the people of the 
seperate States, acting in their State conventions, each State being 
represented by a single vote. 

It must never be forgotten, that it is to the creating and to the 
controlling power, that we are to look for the true character of the 
Federal Government; for the present controversy is, not as to the 
sources from which the ordinary powers of the Government are 
drawn; these are partly fefleral and partly national. Nor is it rel- 
event, to consider, upon whom those powers operate. In this last 
view, the Government for limited purposes is entirely national. The 
true question is, who are the parties to the compact? Who created, 
and who can alter and destroy it. Is it the States, or the People ? 
This question has been already answered. The States as States 
ratified the compact. The people of the United States, collectively, 
had no agency in its formation. There did not exist then, nor has 
there existed at any time since, such a political body as the Peo¬ 
ple of the United States. There is not now, nor has there ever been 
such a relation existing as that of a citizen of New-Hampshire, and 
a citizen of South Carolina, bound together in the same Social 
compact. It would be a waste of time to dwell longer on this part 
of our subject. We repeat, that as regards the foundation and ex¬ 
tent of its powers, the Government of the United States, is strictly, 
what its name implies, a Federal Government, a league between 
several sovereigns, and in these views, a more perfect confederacy 
has never existed in ancient or modern times. 

On looking into this Constitution, we find that the most impor¬ 
tant sovereign powers are delegated to the central Government, and 
all other powers are reserved to the States. A foreign, or an inat¬ 
tentive reader, unacquainted with the origin, progress, and history of 
the Constitution, would be very apt from the phraseology of the in¬ 
strument, to regard the States, as having divested themselves of their 
Sovereignty, and to have become great corporations subordinate to 
one Supreme Government. But this is an error. The States are 
as sovereign now, as they were prior to their entering into the com¬ 
pact. In common parlance, and to avoid circumlocution, it may be 
admissible enough to speak of delegated and reserved sovereignty. 
But correctly speaking, Sovereignty is an unit. It is “one, indivisi¬ 
ble and unalienable.” It is therefore an absurdity to imagine, that 
the Sovereignty of the States, is suriendered in part , and retained 


10 


in 'part. The Federal Constitution is a treaty, a confederation, an 
alliance by which so many sovereign states, agree, to exercise their 
sovereign powers conjointly upon certain objects of external con¬ 
cern, in which they are equally interested, such as war, peace, 
commerce, Foreign Negotiation, and Indian Trade; and upon all 
other subjects of civil Government, they were to exercise their Sov¬ 
ereignty separately. This is the true nature of the compact. 

For the convenient conjoint exercise of the sovereignty of the 
states there must of necessity be some common agency or function¬ 
ary. This agency is the Federal Government. It represents the 
confederated States, and executes their joint will, as expressed in 
the compact. The powers of this government are wholly derivative. 
It possesses no more inherent sovereignty, than an incorporated 
town, or any other great corporate body—it is a political corpora¬ 
tion, and like all corporations, it looks for its powers to an exterior 
source. That source is the states. It wants that “ irresistible, ab¬ 
solute, uncontrolled authority,” without which, according to jurists, 
there can be no sovereignty. As the states conferred, so the states 
can take away its powers. All inherent sovereignty, is therefore in 
the States. It is the moral obligation alone, which each state has 
chosen to .impose upon herself, and not the want of sovereignty, 
which restrains her from exercising all those powers, which (as we 
are accustomed to express ourselves) she has surrendered to the Fed- 
eral Government. The present organization of our Government, as 
far as regards the terms in which the powers of Congress are dele¬ 
gated, in no wise differs from the old confederation. The powers of 
the old Congress were delegated rather in stronger language, than 
we find them written down in the new charter, and yet he would 
hazard a bold assertion, who would say, that the states of the old 
confederacy, were not as sovereign as Great Britain, France and 
Russia, would be in an alliance offensive and defensive. It was not 
the reservation in express terms of the “ Sovereignty, Freedom, and 
Independence of each State” which made them sovereign. They 
would have been equally sovereign, as is universally admitted, with¬ 
out such a resetvation. 

We have said thus much upon the subject of sovereignty, because 
the only foundation upon which we can safely erect the right of a 
state to protect its citizens, is, that South Carolina by the declaration 
of independence, became and has since continued a free, sovereign 
and independent state. That as a sovereign state, she had the in¬ 
herent power to do all those acts, which by the law of nations, 
any prince or potentate may of right do. That like all independent 
states, she neither has, nor ought she to suffer any other restraint 
upon her sovereign will and pleasure, than those high moral obliga¬ 
tions, under which all princes and states are bound before God and 
man, to perform their solemn pledges. The inevitable conclusion 
from what has been said therefore is, that as in all cases of compact 
between independent sovereigns, where from the very nature of 


41 


things, there can be no common judge or umpire, each sovereign 
has a right “ to judge as well of infractions, as of the mode and 
measure ol redress,” so in the present controversy, between Soulh 
Carolina and the Federal Government, it belongs solely to her, by 
her delegates in solemn Convention assembled to decide, whether 
the federal compact be violated, and what remedy the stale ought to 
pursue. South Carolina therefore cannot, and will not yield to any 
department of the Federal Government, and still less to the Supreme 
Court of the United States, the creature of a Government, which 
itself is a creature of the states, a right which enters into the essence 
of all sovereignty, and without which it would become a bauble and 
a name. 

It is fortunate for the view which we have just taken, that the 
history of the constitution, as traced through the journals of the con¬ 
vention which framed that instrument, places the right contended 
for upon the same sure foundation. These journals furnish abundant 
proof, that “ no line of jurisdiction between the states and the Fed¬ 
eral Government in doubtful cases,” could be agreed on. It was 
conceded by Mr. Madison and Mr. Randolph, the most prominent 
advocates for a supreme government, that it was impossible to draw 
this line, because no tribunal sufficiently impartial, as they conceiv¬ 
ed, could be found, and that there was no alternative, but to make 
the Federal Government supreme, by giving it, in all such cases, 
a negative on the acts of the State Legislature. The pertinacity 
with which this negative power was insisted on by the advocates of 
a national government, even after all the important provisions of the 
judiciary or third article of the constitution were arranged and a- 
greed to, proves beyond doubt, that the supreme court was never 
contemplated by either party in that convention, as an arbiter, to 
decide conflicting claims of sovereignty between the states and con¬ 
gress ; and the repeated rejection of all proposals to take from the 
states the power of placing their own construction upon the articles 
of Union, evinces, that the states were resolved never to part with 
the right to judge, whether the acts of the Federal Legislature 
were not an infringement of those articles. 

Correspondent with the right of a sovereign State to judge of 
the infractions of the Federal compact, is the duty of this Con¬ 
vention to declare the extent of the grievance, and the mode and 
measure of redress* On both these points, public opinion has 
already anticipated us, in much that we could urge. It is doubted, 
whether in any country, any subject has undergone before the 
peo, le, a more thorough examination than the constitutionality of 
the several acts of congress for the protection of domestic man¬ 
ufactures. Independent of the present embarrassments they 
throw into the way of our commerce, and the plain indications, 
that certain articles which are the natural exchange for our valua¬ 
ble staple products, are sooner or later to be virtually prohibited. 
Independent of the diminution, which these impost duties cause 


42 


in our incomes, and the severity of the tax upon all articles of 
consumption needed by the poor, they recognize a principle not 
less at war with the ends for which this great confederacy was 
formed, than it is with that spirit of justice, and those feelings of 
concord which ought to prevail amongst states, united by so many 
common interests and exalted triumphs. The people surely need 
not to be told, in tins advanced period of intellect and of freedom, 
that no government can be free, which can rightfully impose a 
tax, for the encouragement of one branch of industry at the ex¬ 
pense of all others, unless such a tax be justified by some great, 
and unavoidable public necessity. Still less can the people be¬ 
lieve, that in a confederacy of states, designed principally, as an 
alliance offensive and defensive, its authors could ever have con¬ 
templated, that the federal head should regulate the domestic in¬ 
dustry of a widely extended country, distinguished above all oth¬ 
ers, for the diversity of interests, pursuits and resources in its 
various sections. It was this acknowledged diversity, that caused 
the arrangement of a conjoint and separate exercise of the sove¬ 
reign authority ; the one to regulate external concerns, and the 
other to have absolute control over the lives, liberties and proper¬ 
ties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and pros¬ 
perity of the States.” 

It is the striking characteristic in the operation of simple and 
consolidated government, that it protects manufactures, agricul¬ 
ture, o** any other branch of the public industry—that it can estab¬ 
lish corporations, or make roads and canals, and patronize learn¬ 
ing, and the arts. But it would be difficult to show, that such was 
the government, which the sages of the convention designed for 
the States. All these powers were proposed to be given to con¬ 
gress, and they were proposed by that party in the convention, 
who desired cifirm National Government. The convention hav¬ 
ing ‘decided on the federal form, in exclusion of the national, all 
these propositions were rejected ; and yet we have lived to see an 
American Congress, who can hold no power, except by express 
grant, as fully in the exercise of these powers, as if they were part 
and parcel of their expressly delegated authority. Under a pre¬ 
tence of’ regulating commerce, they would virtually prohibit it. 
Were this regulation of commerce resorted to, as a means of 
coercing foreign nations to a fair reciprocity in their intercourse 
with us, or for some other bona fide commercial purpose, as has 
been justly said by our Legislature, the Tariff acts would be con¬ 
stitutional. But none of these acts have been passed as counter¬ 
vailing or retaliatory measures, for restrictions placed on our 
commerce by foreign nations. Whilst other nations seem dispo¬ 
sed to relax in their restraints upon trade, our Congress seems 
absolutely bent upon the interdiction of those articles of Merchan¬ 
dize, which are exchangeable for the products of Southern labor, 
thus causing the principal burthen of taxation to fall upon this 
portion of the Union, and by depriving us of our accustomed 


43 


markets, to impoverish our whole Southern country. In the same 
manner, and under the pretence of promoting the Internal Im¬ 
provement of the States, and for other equally unjustifiable and 
unconstitutional purposes, Congress is in the constant habit of 
violating those fundamental principles of the constitution, on 
which alone can rest the prosperity of the States, and the dura¬ 
bility of the Union. 

It is in vain to imagine, that with a people who have struggled 
for freedom, and know its inestimable value, that such a state of 
affairs can be endured longer than there is a well founded hope, 
that reason and justice will resume their empire in the common 
council of the confederacy. That hope having expired with the 
last session of congress, by the present Tariff Act, distinctly and 
fully recognizing as the permanent policy of the country, the odi¬ 
ous principle of protection, it occurs to us, that there is but one 
course for the State to pursue. That course fellow-citizens is RE¬ 
SISTANCE. Not physical but moral resistance—not resistance 
in an angry, or irritated feeling, but resistance by such counter- 
legislation, which, whilst it shall evince to the world that our mea¬ 
sures are built upon the necessity of tendering to congress an 
amicable issue, to try a doubtful question, between friends and 
neighbors, shall at the same time secure us in the enjoyment of our 
rights and privileges It matters not, fellow citizens, by what 
name this counter-legislation shall be designated—call it NULLI¬ 
FICATION, State Interposition, State veto, or by whatever other 
name you please, still if it be but resistance to an oppressive mea¬ 
sure, it is the course which duty, patriotism, and self preservation 
prescribe. If we are asked, upon what ground we place the right 
to resist a particular law of congress and yet regard ourselves as 
a consistent member of the Union, we answer—the ground of the 
compact. We do not choose in a case of this kind, to recur to 
what are called our natural rights, or the right of revolution. We 
claim to nullity by a more imposing title. VVe claim it as a con¬ 
stitutional right, not meaning as some have imagined, that we 
derive, the right from the constitution,for derivative rights can only 
belong to the functionaries of the high contracting parties to the 
constitution, but we claim to exercise it as one of the parties to 
the compact, and as consistent with its letter, its genius and its 
spirit, it being distinctly understood at the time of ratifiying the 
constitution, that the exercise of all sovereign rights not agreed 
to be bad conjointly, were to be exerted separately by the states. 
Though it be true, that the provision in favor of what we call the 
reserved rights of the States, was not necessary to secure to the 
states such reserved rights, yet the mere circumstances of its in¬ 
sertion in the instrument makes it as clear a constitutional provi¬ 
sion, as that of the power of congress to raise armies, or to 
declare war. Any exercise of a right in conformity with a con¬ 
stitutional provision, we conceive to be a constitutional right, 
whether it be founded on an express grant of the right, or it 


44 


be included in a general reservation of undefined powers. 
The constitution being the supreme law, an instrument in which 
a distribution of powers is made between the Federal Government 
and the states, it is incumbent on the authorities of each Govern¬ 
ment, so to shape their legislation as not to overstep the boundaries 
assigned to them. No act can therefore be done by either Gov¬ 
ernment, which for its validity can be referred to any other test, 
than the standard of the constitution. 

If a State Government passes an act defining and punishing a bur¬ 
glary, or a law abolishing the rights of primogeniture, it is more cor¬ 
rect to say, that she is in the exercise of her Constitutional than of 
her natural rights, because it is an express constitutional provision, 
that she should exercise all her sovereign rights, not already entrust¬ 
ed to the common functionary of the parties. As it is impossible 
then that any act can be passed by either government, which if dis¬ 
puted, must not be referred to the constitution as the supreme law 
of the parties, so a right is constitutional or unconstitutional, as it 
shall be found to comport with or to be repugnant to the terms or 
the spirit of that instrument. There is not therefore a sovereign, or 
a natural right which South Carolina can lawfully exercise in con¬ 
formity with her engagements, which is not stipulated for in the 
tenth amendment to the constitution. All such rights stipulated for, 
must be constitutional. To regard them otherwise would be a per¬ 
version of terms. 

That Nullification under our reserved rights was regarded as con¬ 
stitutional by the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, is clear from the ex¬ 
position of them by the celebrated Report, drawn by Mr. Madison. 
In defending the third of these Resolutions, which asserts the doc¬ 
trine of State interposition and protection, the Committee say “that 
they have scanned it not merely with a strict, but with a severe eye, 
and they feel confidence in pronouncing, that in its just and fair con¬ 
struction, it is unexception ably true in its several positions , as well 
as CONSTITUTIONAL and conclusive in its inferences.” What 
were the positions of the third Resolution ? 1st. That the powers of 
the Federal Government, were limited to the plain sense of the in¬ 
strument constituting the compact. 2d, That in case of a delibe¬ 
rate, palpable and dangerous infraction of the compact, the State 
has the right to interpose, &c. Now what is the inference ? It is, 
that “ they are in duty bound to arrest the progress of the evil, by 
maintaining within their RESPECTIVE limits, the authorities, 
rights and liberties appertaining to them.” This inference, says the 
Report, is “CONSTITUTIONAL and conclusive.” The same 
doctrine was as distinctly affirmed by the Virginia Assembly in their 
Resolutions adopting the Report. They say “ that having fully and 
accurately re-examined and reconsidered these Resolutions, they 
find it to be their indispensable duty to ADtlERE to the same as 
founded in truth, as CONSONANT WITH THE CONSTITU¬ 
TION, and as conducive to its preservation.” 

We are aware that it has been recently maintained, that by the 


45 


state interposition referred to in this third resolution, the Virginia 
Assembly had allusion to the natural right, and Mr. Madison himself 
has been been brought forward to give a construction to this resolu¬ 
tion contrary to the most obvious import of the terms. Be it so. Then, 
if the state interposition here spoken of, be a natural right, it is a 
right which the Virginia Assembly have pronounced “ consonant 
with the constitution, and as conducive to its preservation.” Or in 
other words, that without the exercise of this natural sovereign right 
of interposition, the constitution cannot be preserved. There is no 
incongruity in this. It is quite competent for two monarchs to stip¬ 
ulate i:i a treaty for that right, which independent of the treaty, 
would be a natural right, as if a power were conferred by the treaty, - 
on the citizens of either prince, to capture, adjudge and execute all 
subjects of the other engaged in piracy on the high seas. It certain¬ 
ly would be more proper to call such a right a conventional right, 
than a natural right, though it be both. Several of the state consti¬ 
tutions furnish instances of natural rights being secured by a consti¬ 
tutional provision. Even in the instrument we are now considering, 
there is a distinct affirmative in t rms of a natural right to sovereign¬ 
ty : such as the sovereign right of a state to keep troops and ships 
of war in a certain emergency, or the sovereign right of a state to 
lay import and export duties, for the purpose of executing its inspec¬ 
tion laws. In these cases, a natural right is also a constitutional 
right, contrary to the definition of those who maintain that no right 
s properly constitutional which is a sovereign right—because con¬ 
stitutional rights are derivative rights exercised by functionaries.— 
That reasoning would be indeed strange, which would place a natu¬ 
ral reserved sovereign right, expressed in terms upon a better footing, 
than all that mass of residuary right, included in the general leserva- 
tion of the tenth amendment. It would be to create a distinction 
without a difference. The reserved rights, though undefined, are 
easily ascertained. Any particular right not found in the enumera¬ 
ted powers of congress, of course belongs to the states. 

The right to nu lify is universally admitted to be a natural or 
sovereign right. The natural rights of the States are also admitted 
to be their reserved rights. If they are reserved, they must be con¬ 
stitutional, because the Constitution being an agreement to arrange 
the mode by which the States shall exercise their sovereignty, ex¬ 
pressly stipulates for the exercise of these powers in all cases not 
enumerated. To some it may be unimportant upon what basis we 
place the right of a State to protect its citizens, as counter-legisla¬ 
tion would be the beginningof resistance in either case ; others may 
perhaps, justly say, that the whole controversy is resolvable into a 
dispute as to what is, or is not, the proper definition of a constitu¬ 
tional right. We, however, think it of infinite importance, in urging 
the right of nullification, to regard it as a constitutional, rather 
than as a natural remedy, because a constitutional proceeding is 
calculated to give that proceeding a pacific character and a higher 


46 


recommendation with the people. The characteiistic, in fact, of the 
American Constitutions in general, is that they sanctify the funda¬ 
mental principles of the American Revolution. Whilst other nations 
have to resoit to the law of nature, and by force to drive despots 
from their thrones, thus incurring what amongst them is odiously 
termed the guilt of rebellion, we here have the incalculable advan¬ 
tage of a thorough understanding amongst all classes, that it is the 
right, as well as the duty, of a free people, to recur when necessary 
to their sovereign rights, to resist oppression. Such a sentiment as 
this becoming familiar to the public mind, acquires prodigious 
strength, when its spirit is seen to pervade a written Constitution,and 
prevents rather than accelerates opportunities for an unnecessary re¬ 
currence to revolutionary movements. Under such a structure of 
the public sentiment, when the voice of a sovereign State shall be 
spoken, “it will be heard in a tone, which virtuous governors will 
obey and tyrannical ones shall dread.” Nothing can more recon¬ 
cile nullification to our citizens, than to know, that if we are not 
proceeding according to the form of the Constitution, we are ne¬ 
vertheless adhering to its spirit. The convention which framed 
the Constitution could not agree upon any mode of settling a dis¬ 
pute like the present. The case was therefore left unprovided for, 
under the conviction no doubt, as is admitted by Mr. Hamilton in 
“The Federalist,” that if the Federal Government should oppress 
the States, the State governments w^ould he ready to check it, by 
virtue of their own inherent sovereign powers. “It may safely be 
received as an axiom in our political system (says Mr. Hamilton,) 
that the State Governments will, in all possible contingencies , af¬ 
ford complete security against invasion of the public liberty by 
the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be marked 
under .pretences so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies 
of men, as of the people at large.—The Legislature will have 
better means of information—They can discover the danger at a 
distance; and, possessing all the organs of civil power, and the 
confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan 
of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the 
community 

The measure cannot be revolutionary, which is adopted,not with a 
view to resort to force, but by some decisive measures, to call the 
attention of the co*States to a disputed question in such a form as to 
compel them to decide what are or are not the rights of the States, 
in a case of a palpable and dangerous infraction of those funda¬ 
mental principles of liberty in which they all have an interest. 

In the exercise of the right of Nullification, we are not unmind¬ 
ful of the many objections which have been urged against it. That 
it may embarrass the present majority in Congress, who are fatally 
bent upon building up the sectional interests of their constituents, 
upon the ruin of our commerce, we can readily imagine ; but these 
embarrassments, on examination, will be found to proceed rather 


47 


from an unwillingness on their part to adjust the controversy on 
principles of reason and justice, than from any real difficulty exist¬ 
ing in the Constitution. 

The provisions of the Constitution are ample for taking the sense 
of the States on a question, more important than any which has oc¬ 
curred since the formation of the Government—But if the spirit of 
justice departs from the councils, to which we have a right to look 
up as the guardians of the public peace, no provisions of human wis¬ 
dom can avail—We have heard much of the danger of suffering one 
State to impede the operations of twenty-three States : but it must be 
obvious to every considerate man, that the danger can only exist 
where a State is wrong. But if the people of any one State are right 
in the principles for which they contend, it is desirable that they 
should impede the operations of Congress, until the sentiments of its 
co-States shall be had. A higher eulogy could not be bestowed up¬ 
on our system, than the power of resorting to some conservative 
principle, that shall stay a disruption of the league. It is 
no argument to say that a State may have no grounds on which 
to place herself upon her sovereign rights. This is a possible, but by 
no means a probable case. Experience has given us a most instruc¬ 
tive lesson on this very subject—it has taught us that, the danger is 
not that a State may resort to her sovereign rights too often, but that 
it will not avail herself of them when necessary. Look, fellow citi¬ 
zens, to our State :—for ten years we have petitioned and remonstra¬ 
ted against the unconstitutionality of the Tariff acts, andtho’ the Gon- 
viction has been universal that the effect of the system would be ruin¬ 
ous to our interests, yet the difficulty has been great, to bring the 
people to the resisting point. 

And so with other objections. It has been maintained by us, 
that according to the philosophy of the government, and the true 
compact, it becomes Congress in all emergencies like the present, 
to solicit from the States, the call of a Convention.—That upon such 
a convocation, it should be incumbent on the States claiming the 
doubtful power, to propose an amendment to the Constitution, giv¬ 
ing the doubtful power, and on failure to obtain it by consent of 
three-fourths of all the States, to regard the power as never having 
been intended to be given. We must not be understood to say, 
that this was matter even of implied stipulation, at the formation of 
the compact. The Constitution is designedly silent on the subject, 
on account of the extreme difficulty in the minds of its framers of 
appointing a mode of adjusting these differences. This difficulty 
we now discover was imaginary. It had its source in apprehensions, 
which an experience of upwards of forty years has proved to be with¬ 
out the shadow of a foundation.—Many of the sages of that day, 
were dissatisfied with their work for a reason, which is the very op¬ 
posite of the truth. They feared, not that the General Government 
would encroach upon the rights cf the States, but that the States 
would perpetually be disposed to pass their boundaries of power, and 


jf 


48 


finally destroy the confederation. Had they been blessed with the 
experience which we have acquired, there could have been no ob¬ 
jection to trusting the States, who created the Government, and who 
would not wilfully embarrass it, with a veto under certain modifica¬ 
tions. It seems but reasonable, that a disputed power, which it 
would have required three-fourths of the States to add to the Con¬ 
stitution, ought not to be insisted on by a majority in Congress, as 
impliedly conferred, if more than one-fourth should object to it. To 
deny this would be to decide finally the validity of a power by a 
positive majority of the people at large, inst ad of a concurring ma¬ 
jority of the States. There is, it is true one objection, and only one 
to this view, and that is, that under this theory, a majority little be¬ 
yond the three-fourths, as for instance seven States out of twenty- 
four might deprive Congress of powers which have been expressly 
delegated. The answer to this is, that it would be a very ex¬ 
treme case for a single State to claim the resumption of a power, 
which it had clearly delegated in positive terms. But it seems al¬ 
most beyond the range of possibility, that six other States should be 
found to sustain a Nullifying State in such a pretension. Should 
such a case ever occur, as one-fourth and upwards of the States re¬ 
solving to break their pledges, without the slightest pretence, it would 
shew, that it was time to dissolve the league. If a spirit of friend¬ 
ship and fair dealing, cannot bind together the members of this 
Union, the sooner it is dissolved the better. So that this objection 
is rather nominal, than substantial. But the evil of this objection 
is, that whilst its admission would relieve us from an imaginary peril, 
we should be plunged into that certain danger of an unrestricted 
liberty of Congress to give us instead of a confederated government, 
a government without any limitation upon its power than the will 
of a majority. 

Other objections have been urged against Nullification. It is 
said that the President or Congress might employ the military and 
naval force of the United States to reduce the Nullifying State into 
obedience, and thus produce a civil dissension amongst the mem¬ 
bers of the confederacy. We do not deem it necessary in a com¬ 
munity so conversant with this part of the subject as that of South 
Carolina, to recapitulate the arguments which have been urged a- 
gainst such an improbable course, both for the want of power, and 
on the ground of expediency. But we cannot pass over one view, 
which we think sufficient to quiet all appresension on that score. 
We live in an ago of reason and intellect. The idea of using force 
on an occasion of this kind, is utterly at variance with the genius 
and spirit of the American people. In truth, it is becoming repug¬ 
nant even to the genius and spirit of the governments of the old 
world. We have lately seen in England one of the greatest reforms 
achieved, which her history records—a reform which her wisest 
statesmen twenty years ago, would have predicted could not be 
accomplished without civil war brought about by a bloodless revolu- 


V 


49 


tion. The cause is manifest. Not only are the people every where 
better informed, but such is the influence which public opinion ex¬ 
erts over constituted authorities, that the rulers of this earth are more 
swayed by reason and justice than formerly. Under such evident in¬ 
dications of the march of mind and intellect, it would be to pay but 
a poor compliment to the people of these States, to imagine, that a 
measure taken by a Sovereign State, with the most perfect good feel¬ 
ing to her confedeiates, and to the perpetuity of the Union, and with 
no other view than to force upon its members, the consideration of a 
most important constitutional question, should terminate otherwise 
than peaceably. 

Fellow-Citizens, it is our honest and firm belief, that Nullifica¬ 
tion will preserve, and not destroy this Union. But we should re¬ 
gret to conceal from you that if Congress should not be animated 
with a patriotic and liberal feeling in this conjuncture, they can 
give to this controversy what issue they please Admit then that 
there is a risk of a serious conflict with the Federal Govern¬ 
ment. We know no better way to avoid the chance of hostile mea¬ 
sures in our opponents, than to evince a readiness to meet danger, 
come from what quarter it will. We should think that the Amer¬ 
ican Revolution was indeed to little purpose, if a consideration of 
this kind, were to deter our people from asserting their sovereign 
rights. That revolution it is well known was n t entered into by 
our Southern ancestors from any actual oppression, which the peo¬ 
ple suffered. It was a contest waged for principles, emphatically 
for principle. The calamities of revolution, strife and civil war, 
were fairly presented to the illustrious patriots of those times, which 
tried the souls of men. The alternative was either to remain 
dependant colonies in hopeless servitude, or to become free, sove¬ 
reign and independent States—To attain such a distinguished rank 
am mgst the nations of the earth, there was but one path, and that 
the path of glory—the crowning glory of being accounted worthy 
of all suffering, and of embracing all the calamities of a protracted 
war abroad, and of domestic evils at home, rather than to surrender 
their liberties. The result of their labors is knowm to the world,, 
through the flood of light which that revolution has shed upon the 
science of government, and the rights of man—in the “ LESSON 
it has taught the oppressor, and in the example it has afforded to 
the oppresse i”—in the invigoration of the spirit of freedom every 
where, and in the amelioration it is producing in the social, order of 
mankind. 

Inestimable are the blessings of that well regulated freedom, 
which permits man to direct his labors and his enterprise to the 
pursuit or branch of industry for which he conceives nature has 
qualified him, unmolested by avarice enthroned in power. Such 
was the freedom for which South Carolina struggled when a depend¬ 
ant colony. Such is the freedom for which she once tasted as the 
first fruit of that revolutionary triumph which she assisted to 
achieve. Such is the freedom she reserved to herself on entering 


:0 


into the league. Such is the freedom of which she has been depriv¬ 
ed, and to which she must be restored, if her commerce be worth 
preserving, or the spirit of her Laurens and her Gadsden has not 
fled forever from our bosoms. It is in vain to tell South Carolina 
that she can look to any administration of the Federal Government 
for the protection of her sovereign rights or the redress of her 
southern wrongs. Where the fountain is so polluted, it is not to be 
expected that the stream will again be pure. The protection to 
which in all representative governments the people have been accus¬ 
tomed to look, to wit, the responsibility of the governors to the gov¬ 
erned, has proved nerveless and illusory—under such a system, 
nothing but a radical reform in our political institutions can preserve 
this Union, It is full time that we should know what rights we have 
under the Federal Constitution, and more especially ought we to 
know whether we are to live under a consolidated government, or a 
confederacy of States—whether the States be sovereign, or their lo¬ 
cal Legislatures be mere corporations. A FRESH UNDER¬ 
STANDING OF THE BARGAIN WE DEEM ABSOLUTE¬ 
LY NECESSARY. No mode can be devised by which a dispute 
can be referred to the source of all power, but by some one State 
taking the lead in the great enterprize of reform. Till some one 
Southern State tenders to the Federal Government an issue, it will 
continue to have its “ appetite increased by what it feeds on.” 
History admonishes us that rulers never have the forecast to substi¬ 
tute in good time, reform for revolution. They forget that it is 
always more desirable that the just claims of the governed should 
break in on them, “ through well contrived and well disposed win¬ 
dows, not through flaws and breaches, through the yawning chasm 
of their own ruin.” One State must under the awful prospects be¬ 
fore us, th/ow r herself into the breach in this great struggle for con¬ 
stitutional freedom. There is no other mode of awakening the 
attention of the co-States to grievances which if suffered to ac¬ 
cumulate, must dismember the Union. It has fallen to our lot, fel¬ 
low-citizens, first to quit our trenches. Let us go on to the assault 
with cheerful hearts and undaunted minds. 

Fellow-citizens, the die is now cast. We have solemnly resolved 
on the course which it becomes our beloved State to pursue—we 
have resolved that until these abuses sha 1 be reformed,“NO MOKE 
TAXES SHALL BE PAID HERE.” “ Millions for defence but 
not a cent for tribute.” And now we call upon our citizens, native 
and adopted, to prepare for the crisis, and to meet it as becomes men 
and freemen. We call upon ail classes and all parties to forget their 
former differences, and to unite in a solemn determination never to 
abandon tins contest until such a change be effected in the councils 
of the nation, that all the citizens of this confederacy shall partici¬ 
pate equally to the benefits and the burthens of the Government.— 
To this solemn duty we now invoke you in the name of all that is 
sacred and valuable to man. We invoke you in the name of that 
liberty which has been acquired by you from an illustrious ances. 


51 


ry, and which it is your duty to transmit unimpaired to the most 
is an generations. We invoke you in the name of that c« nstitu- 
tion \v nch you profess to venerate, and of that union which you are 
ail desirous to perpetuate. By the reverence you bear to these your 
ms itu ions by all the love you bear to liberty—by the detestation 
)ou ia\e for servitude by all the abiding memorials of your past 
g (Dries— y the proud association of your exalted and your common 
liump s in the first and greatest of revolutions—by the force of all 
hose sublime truths which that event has inculcated amongst the 
na ions y the noble flame of republican enthusiasm which warms 
>our osoms, we conjure you in this mirrhty struggle to give your 
ear s anc souls and minds to your injured and oppressed State, and 
o suppoit her cause publicly and privately, with your opinions, your 

prayers and your actions. 

vnhn P ™i?,^'J ls ,hese P rove unavailing, we then COMMAND 
YOUltOBKDIENCE to the la>vs and thc'anthorilies of the State 
7 a title which none can gainsay. We demand it bv that alle- 
glance, which is reciprocal, with the protection you have received 
iom t le State. We admit of no obedience to any authority, which 
! 1 ‘It ' ct primary allegiance, which every citizen owes 

tothe ^tate ot his birth or his adoption. There is not,nor has there 
c l n r T an ^ direct or immediate allegiance between the citizens 
ot south Carolina and the Federal Government r J he relation be¬ 
tween them is through the State.” South Carolina having entered 
into the Constitutional compact, as a separate, independent, polit¬ 
ical community, as has already been stated, has the right to declare 
an unconstitutional act of Congress,null and void—after her sove¬ 
reign declaration that the act shall not be enforced within her limits, 
such dec.aration is obligatory on her citizens. As far as its citi¬ 
zens are concerned, the clear right of the State is to declare the 
extent of the obligation.” 1 his declaration once made, the citizen 
has no course, but 10 OBEY. If lie refuses obedience, so as to 
bring Inmself under the displeasure of his only and lawful sover¬ 
eign, and within the severe pains and penalties, which bv her high 
sovereign power, the Legislature will not fail to provide in her 
sell defence, the fault, ami the folly must be bis own. 

And now fellow citizens, having discharged the solemn duty, to 
which we have been summoned, in a crisis big with the most impor¬ 
tant results to the liberties, peace, safety, and happiness of this 
once harmonious but now distracted confederacy, we commend 
oui cause to that great disposer of events, who (if he has not al- 
leady for some inscrutable purposes of his own, decreed otherwise) 
will smiie on the efforts of truth and justice. We know that ^un¬ 
less the Lord keepeth the city, the watchmen watcheth but in vain;” 
but relying as we do in this controversy, on the purity of our mo¬ 
tives and the honor of our ends, we make this appeal with all the 
confidence, which in times of trial and difficulty, ought to inspire 
*“ aS *5 <he P afnot and <he Christian. Fellow citizens, DO 
T0 Y0|TR COUNTRY, AND LEAVE THE 
CONSEQUENCES TO GOD. 


52 


lil^The Author of the Exposition, introductory to 
the Ordinance, is said to be Gen. Robert Y. Hayne; 
of the Address to the People, George McDuffie, Esq.; 
of the Address to the People of South Carolina, 
Robert J. Turnbull, Esq. 

















































































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